1985 Honda Acty Show Truck

For those not at the weekender (yet) the good news is the side panels are tyre-shred proof or they were for the near enough 200 mile journey down here!

The truck behaved well and apart from loosing some of the metal undertray on the campsite ground all is good.

Friday

12:43 - Packed up and ready to go after a petrol stop


En route...

14:35 - Kilsby


16:25 - St. Helen Without


17:07 - Milton


Did you just shake your tic tacs at me?!

19:19 - Arrived at camp site


So about five hours in total after leaving convoy meet point.

20:19 - sunset over camp site before it went frrrreeezing!


Saturday

08:43 - Parked up and after a quick wipe down



13:41 - no words for this next one. Well ok four then. CAR OF THE SHOW!


13:51 - I thought this would make a nice backdrop so moved the truck and through some wood on the bed to make it look at home

Hmmm, that "truck" is growing on me.

Now that you´ve spaced out the side skirts you could also drop the cutouts in front and start just underneath the door?

You could also make them "moveable" upwards, just like the truck bed sides turn downwards - than you wouldn´t need the two access holes. You know, like those "strongrooms" at old vw type 2 trucks.

Grrr, if only I was good in photoshop I wouldn´t have to struggle in describing this in written form!



btw. that violet CAR OF THE SHOW, is it inspired by some tv show? Looks a bit familiar, but I just can´t recall.

Now that Jonny Smith tweeted favourably about your truck does that mean you're too famous to rub shoulders with the rest of us?

Dick Dastardly and Mutley from Wacky Races I think

I think the answer to those suggestions is something I was thinking about on the journey home and that’s to create spacer bars for the drop side pivots so that they can be dropped the full 90 degrees and locked in position down up lifted up easily for fixing stuff / accessing underneath.

For now I have other things to sort...

Glad you liked it.

The wheel wasn’t mine, I was just using the truck as a truck to helping deliver the wheel for theothergav (if he’s not registered yet I’m sure he’ll be along at some point )

So I’d best update this now I’ve caught up a bit on real life since the weekender prep and the weekender itself.

So following my last post on Saturday afternoon all was going well and I had a great chat with Jonny Smith and a couple of other guys about the truck, grot mags, BMXs, TCP on grazes, dettol baths and everything in between.

Then i got back to the campsite and started drinking.

Started drinking after a diet of crisps and an apple and a banana all day and no tea. Plan was to eat at the shell building but it was too late by then. Apparently I was bidding in yen in the tat auction but all bids were null and void. Phew.

Big thanks to GavinJ and theothergav for getting me back to camp.

I awoke the next day and made it into the show area and when I took these photos I wasn’t sure if the fog was genuinely in the sky or just in my head...





I didn’t take any more photos on Sunday and didn’t feel properly right until after a burger at 12:30. After that I did get a good chance to see lots of lovely stuff I just didn’t get around to doing another pass with the camera.

So the journey back then...

Started up fine when I left the track but felt a bit shaky.

Petrol stop. (Photos courtesy of GavinJ)



Things were ok at this stage but temp needle was on H, I’d put this down to losing the radiator air scoop on the bibbly bobbly lumpy bumpy campsite ground and lower speeds on a hot day.

But we stopped and poured 2 litres of water / coolant combo in ...



... and set off. Truck was driving great and temp gauge was staying bang on halfway so I was surprised when I was led into the services until I saw the smoke / steam pouring off the driver side rear hub.

I’ve had problems with that area since purchase over two years ago but it’s never really been driven the distances I’ve done over the past month before.

I had bought replacement wheel bearings as Ray recommended getting them swapped when he did my suspension but they didn’t arrive in time to fit before the weekender.

I’ve actually put the problem down to a worn outer CV joint - all the heat was in that area and grease was coming from somewhere and a hose clamp came off the cv boot so I think it was a combination of those causing the smoke / steam as further on the journey that all stopped until I was just left with the vibrating/ shaking which was more pronounced when stationary.

Then further on I started hearing a metallic scrape on higher bumps so I raised front suspension for more clearance but also more bumpiness. It turned out that the scrape was exhaust pipe dragging ground, presumably jumped off the hanger due to vibrations. The initial solution to this was to drive it on full bore as much as possible so the exhaust didn’t drop on deceleration.

That worked until off it clanged and luckily resulting in no damage.

The rest of the journey was louder thanks to being exhaust-free but also less scrapey.

Then i tried to get on to the drive only to find my suspension on the dodgy corner isn’t lifting- another indicator to the driveshaft being stuck into the cv joint. I managed to get on from a certain angle.

So I managed to make it back without the help of the AA but definitely wouldn’t have done without new-found car friends GavinJ and @tgeothergav

I’m having a car-free couple of weeks but when I’m back on it I’ll be trying to remove the driveshafts / cv joints from the donor vehicle in the hope that they’re refurbishable before fitting them on my truck.

If neither can be refurbished I’m really in trouble as they’re not manufactured any more. I guessed I’d have to get something machined - maybe a driveshaft and CV joint from another vehicle so the outer end of the driveshaft matches the new cv joint and then the hub would need to be machined to match the new cv joint. Is that a possibility?! Does anyone know companies that do that kind of thing?!

Cheers in advance for any possible solutions!

Chances are with a bit of lateral thinking/ Google foo, you will find other vehicles using the same parts. If stuck,send me a knackered cv and I will find something, somehow, somewhere,that will work. Never failed yet..😉

I think I’ve tried that site or at least browsed it.

Part numbers of interest ...

42320-679-003 - CV joint inboard

42320-679-023 - CV joint outboard

www.parts-honda.uk/honda-cars/ACTY-TRUCK/1983/DX/STEERING-BRAKE-SUSPENSION/DRIVESHAFT/1767906/B__2100/4/7795