Back in June, I did a major tune-up on my Acty...new distrib cap & rotor, new wires, water pump, timing belt, valve adjustment, fuel filter, clutch & pressure plate, etc. And when I was done, it ran superbly.....the best it had ever ran. Then about 3 weeks later, some rainy weather hit and I started noticing a prob. For the first 1/2 mile or so, it would be real gutless. But this seemed to be only a problem in damp weather at first. I assumed that I must not have a good seal on either the distributer cap or on some of the plug wires or on the coil wire. I was too busy to do anything about it and thought I'd just wait til I have some time and then go through the wiring. I kept running the truck daily and the problem gradually has become worse. It now acts up even in dry weather and instead of clearing up in 1/2 mile, I now have to drive it close to 10 miles before it starts to smarten up...and even then, it doesn't quite run 100%. It feels as though it has developed a governor. It starts great and runs perfectly fine up until what I'd estimate (by ear) to be around 3400 RPM. Then it just falls on it's face. If you push the accelerator beyond this speed, the engine will just die out. But if you back off the throttle, it will hold the little power it has at that RPM. Ever so slowly, it will improve and after 6-10 highway miles, it will actually reach 100 km/hour. But shut it off for 20 minutes or so, and it's back to it's gutless mode again. I have to do something about this real soon as I need the truck for working on our snowmobile trails before winter sets in. I'm now thinking it might be something more than a bad wire? Perhaps, a bad coil, bad igniter, bad fuel pump? I did a compression test today and found all three to be between 153-170 PSI dry and between 160-190 when I squirt a little oil into the spark plug holes. I know that isn't spectacular compression, but my Honda manual gives a range of 9.5 - 14 kg/cm2 which I've calculated to be approximately between 137-201 PSI. So, I don't think the prob is compression related (even though it does consume some oil and has done so for the last 15,000 km). Any input or ideas would be very much appreciated. Thank you in advance.
sounds like a vacuum advance problem...either in the dist. (mechanism needing lubing) or the vacuum lines running to the dist.
Thanks, fupabox. Any ideas how I might address that if it is the problem? Could I remove the vacuum line going to the distributor and spray something in there to loosen things up a bit? If so, what type of product? WD40? Silicone spray lube? Or some sort of penetrating fluid? Or do I need to take things apart? And do you think I need to be concerned about my compression just yet? I'd like to rebuild the engine before too long, but I still don't see any Honda Acty engine rebuild kits available from any of the suppliers yet. It seems the Honda is a little more difficult to find parts for than most of the other brands.
I think your compression is fine...run some seafoam through the carb to clean off your valves and the compression should raise a bit...sometimes oil in the cylinders seals lightly carboned valves and raises compression.. looking like rings could be bad..after checking the vacuum lines remove the dist. cap and rotor and try to see the advance mechanism inside under the rotor...apply vacuum (you can just suck on the vacuum hose ) and see if the advance is moving inside the distributor...you can lube it with wd40 (slick 50 pump lube is my favorite) to free the mechanism..then spray on some white lithium grease..
I think I may have found my problem. Maybe it's not the only problem, but it is definately a problem. I removed the distributor cap this morning and found that all 3 pins inside were badly damaged. Two of them are badly bent. Now, I am left wondering why? I ordered the cap, rotor, and wires from one of the sites sponsors. And although they were not genuine Honda parts, they were at least made in Japan components. So I assumed they were good stuff. The cap looked identical to my original. But the rotor was made considerably differently. After discussing this over the telephone with the supplier, I was told that although some of the supplied parts might look different, they would work on my Acty. Now I'm thinking that the rotor was incompatible for the application. However, it did fit right on and it did work great for about 500 km before it started acting up. So why then, did the pins get all bent up? I probably have about 2000 km on the truck now since I changed the cap and rotor.....so I guess this damage happened gradually and as the pins became more bent out of shape, the running quality got worse and worse. Do you think this is simply a case of bad/incompatible parts? Or could there be some other reason for the pins to have become damaged and bent. I'll try to attach some pics. I should add that prior to my replacing the rotor, cap, and wires back in June, I had never experienced any ignition related problems and I replaced these items only as prevetative maintenance and not because of any running condition problems. I will now reinstall the original components and see what happens. Here are a couple pics. The first one shows the damaged pins inside the cap This one shows the original rotor at the top and the new replacement rotor on the bottom
Does the distributor shaft have excessive side to side play? If not I would be inclined to think incompatible parts.
yup...looks like the rotor is contacting the pins for sure...possible you could grind the rotor to size but the cap is already toasted.
Hmmm? So I changed back to my original cap and rotor and the truck is still acting the same way. I was almost positive the damaged cap would have been the entire problem. When I started the truck up in the shop after changing the cap and rotor, it sounded great and revved nicely whne I stepped on the gas with the tranny in nuetral.....so I was positive the problem was solved. Man, was I ever disappointed when I took it out on the highway only to find that nothing had changed. Guess I need to look into this a bit further. Could the bad rotor & cap have in some way put undue stress on the coil or igniter causing them to fail?
First off, I want to thank you guys for the tips. I finally have my Acty running 100% again and quite frankly, I feel pretty dumb about neglecting to check the obvious stuff first. I normally replace my air filter every 6000 km, even though it usually still looks fairly clean at that point. I had replaced my air filter 2000 km ago when I did the tune-up..........so I just assumed it shouldn't be a problem since I had not been running in any dusty/dirty conditions. But I thought before I go any further dismantling the distributor or replacing the coil, I should at least take a peek at the filter. And I couldn't believe what I saw. It was completely blackened with some soot-like substance. I'm assuming this is related to the 2000 km I drove the truck with the engine mis-firing due to the bad rotor & cap. Could continued operation with a bad ignition cause combustion deposits to backfeed into the air cleaner housing and cause the filter to plug up solid? Here's a pic of my air filter. It looked even worse when I first pulled it out, but lots of the black stuff just fell off of it while I was handling the filter. I installed a decent used air filter and the truck runs great again.
Now I have to ask you guys what's the fair thing for me to do with respect to my supplier selling me an incorrect part which led to my problems. All I'd be looking for is a new rotor and a new distributor cap and the shipping of those items at no cost. I think that's fair considering I had called him up and told him the rotor looked different than mine and he advised me to go ahead and install it anyways. I realize our suppliers must have a difficult enough time sourcing parts for these mini trucks and his supplier likely assured him that the rotor he sold me would work on an Acty. So I can't put all the blame on him. But it's really frustrating when a person does everything he can to order the correct parts and still winds up getting the wrong pieces. I might add that the timing belt tensioner that he sold me on the same order was considerably different from mine too and if I had installed it without doing some modifications (shimming the backside and using a different bolt), I would likely have ended up destroying my engine. Some people would have likely missed seeing the difference in the tensioner and installed it with catastrophic results.
Thoughts about bad parts Hi vtg, Just want you to know I am a new guy too, so I might be out of line and don't know it. (I am sure they will let me know But I would sure like to think this supplier that you mentioned who is also a sponsor would make it right with you. I am also thinking I would want to know he acknowledges the issue and guarantees to fix it for future. I have read in other spots about parts not looking quite right with people being assured they would work, but did not. I have even read about the belt tensioner issue you mentioned, not right ! Scares me to think we could so easily be assured of the part being "right" and then finding out otherwise. I mean these little trucks don't grow on trees and I really would be upset if someone else's thoughtless or unknowledgeable advice could wreck my favorite toy ! My two cents.
1st...I would politely explain the issue to the supplier,I'm pretty sure it wasn't intentional but sometimes you need to bite the bullet because wrong parts are never the customers fault..it's something he needs to address with his supplier. 2nd..the air filter..looks like serious backfiring through the carb...the mechanical contact inside the distributor could have burned out the points or the ignitor (not sure which the acty has) or even damaged the coil or condenser ..not 100% sure on this....hopefully someone knows the answer....but if you have points under the rotor I would start with them being the culprit
My Acty doesn't appear to have any points. There's something screwed to the rear side of the distributor which I think is called an igniter.... the rotor problem likely didn't do it a whole lot of good, but it still seems to be working. I'd say the truck is now running at 99%......just seems to be lacking a wee bit in top speed. However that may be simply because the weather is getting colder here now and the truck has always seemed to run stronger in warm weather. I'm guessing these trucks were not designed for cold conditions and the carburetor jetting is probably a bit lean for cold weather. It'd be nice if some supplier carried a selection of carburetor jets for these rigs so that we could experiment a little as I'm sure cold weather performance could be enhanced considerably by installing a slightly larger main jet. I will contact my supplier today or tomorrow and see if he'll be willing to send me a new rotor and cap. I chose not to mention his name because whether or not he is willing to come good for the parts, I think it's simply bad taste to run down any supplier on a forum. Quite likely, the supplier who sold him the rotor told him it would work on an Acty because they likely tried one out on an Acty for a few miles and found it ran well. And so did mine (for a couple hundred clicks). It's probably just a case of insufficient testing and we mini truck owners end up being guinea pigs having to sort through what works and what doesn't. Kinda frustrating, but I suspected when I bought the little rig that I'd be in for some trial and error repair jobs. Heck, that only adds to the fun factor of mini truck ownership...lol I just hope that by posting these type of what works/what doesn't problems with a few pics included, that we can all help each other out when it comes to keeping these little trucks on the road. By the way, before I discovered what the problem was, I'd already looked into purchasing some ignition related items locally and found I could buy a coil, an igniter, and spark plugs at my local Piston Ring store and I'll list the part numbers in case it'll be of benefit to anyone. I did not actually order the coil or igniter so I can't be certain they are the same, but the pics the Piston Ring guy brought up on his computer screen looked identical to my components. We found these part numbers by looking up parts for a 1989 Honda Accord. I did buy the AC/Delco plugs and have installed them and they work fine Ignition Coil UF62 (Piston Ring part #) GN10064 (Delphi part #) Igniter LX539 (Piston Ring part #) Spark Plugs BKR6E-11 NGK plugs crossover to AC/Delco # 41-602 available at Piston Ring and likely from many other suppliers Also, I picked up a new oil filter at Piston Ring and it is a Wix 51358. It sorta suprised me that they were even able to look the oil filter up by typing Honda Acty 660 into their computer system
Hey, Greg.....that's pretty neat how you did that overlay. I gotta learn that trick someday. And yes, it does look considerably longer. I left a message with my supplier today and he got back to me within the hour and said he'd send me a new cap and rotor ASAP at no charge. He said his supplier shipped him about a half dozen of those rotors that were packaged in the wrong boxes. Apparantly, a couple other guys had installed them and couldn't even get their engines started. I really have no idea how my Acty ran for a couple thousand clicks with that rotor because from looking at the cap, you wouldn't think it could've run at all. Anyhow, I'm glad my problem is resolved and am happy to know I've got some new replacements parts on the way at no cost.
