1985 Honda Acty Show Truck

I picked the Acty up today and took a few photos on the drive of the abandoned factory opposite the garage...



















Then drove back home. The journey was a strange one, fine after it had got up to temperature or maybe it was just fine when I was on more clear roads but when starting off in traffic it was a bit jumpy, kind of refraining to accelerate and then suddenly running fine almost like a turbo kicked in!

I’m hoping it’s just the fact the rocker cover isn’t fully sealed currently that’s causing it, it ran completely fine on the way last week but the oil would be lower by now.

We’ll see how it goes after I’ve sorted rocker.

It’s a manual choke and yes it it did feel like it does when I need to put the choke in and did play around with various stages to see if any helped.

I dropped it off early morning last Saturday and brought it home just before mid day so I think it was warmer taking it back.

Oh and yes the original fuel was 6 months old, I filled up mid journey for the fear that I hadn’t got any left so maybe after that point the petrol flushed through more.

I googled loose rocker cover symptoms, this gives me confidence...




I’ve got a few hours tomorrow so all being well I’ll get it sorted.

Pretty much since I glued the frame and panel together on Sunday it’s been non stop rain.

Luckily I put it in the back of the truck in the dry garage so it wasn’t ruined.

Clamps now removed and it holds itself up.

I just need to drill mounting holes into the three legs so it can bolt in place.

Then stain and varnish the two pieces to give a nice and neat separate section for the suspension kit, battery and luggage between the cab and the board and the exposed bed behind.

I’ve never noticed them not being in the middle! I re-used an old sign I had which was already drilled! Funnily enough I was contacting sticker printers yesterday as I am replacing the whole board with much smaller subtle stickers on the bed itself by the tail gate. That giant one was a mistake order - 450mm instead of 45mm!

Another hour after work managed before the rain arrived.

First coat of stain on the underside of the base panel…




Second coat of stain on the upright panel front and rear, front half dry in this photo …



and rear fully wet in this photo…




If the weather is dry tomorrow I’ll get another two coats on both.

I’ve got the rocker cover fitted with all four retaining bolts locked in place now so hopefully that will fix the oil leak and patchy running in the last journey.

After that I started the relentless task of stripping the underside back to a point I can clean up and apply rust treatment before epoxy paint.

The angle grinder caught on something and spun out of my hand and attacked my throat with the handle so I reverted to scraper and wire brush.

Ideally I’d like to take the engine out and remove the coolant pipes that restrict access to get the whole lot stripped back to bare metal and fully treated but until then I’ll just treat the parts I can access.




Before…







Should have bought a throat guard as well as a face guard!








After a few minutes of poly strip wheeling…








Next weapon of choice…




After some scraping and scrubbing with the wire brush…







A few areas of surface rust exposed, these were under a layer of some kind of rubberised paint on the underside, I’m not sure when this was applied or whether it would have stopped the rust from worsening?



Next step will be to scrub every where with degreasant and then application of bilt hamber hydrate-80 and then bilt hamber epoxy.

When I was finished I looked like I’d been down a coal mine, the face masks don’t protect you much!




My elbows and neck ache from doing the work whilst lying on the floor, I guess it would be easier under a ramp or in a pit standing up?

Just glad I didn’t take my head off!

A good few hours spent cleaning the underside of the Acty and applying bilt hamber hydrate80 to convert any surface rust to some unknown magic.

I’ve put it on areas where there wasn’t any rust too, thought it was better that way than miss bits!

The axle is nicely colour coded to the axle stands too now, or it was when it was applied but was changing to black by the time I applied the second coat.

I’ve got Bilt hamber 2 part epoxy to apply at the weekend over the same areas.

















I took this photo as I get asked by lots of other mini truck owners asking about my suspension setup…




And likewise for my exhaust…