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Little KEI Trucks

LScout800

LScout800

LS Powered Tractor
Joined
Jun 10, 2020
Member Number
1937
Messages
474
Loc
CA
Anyone got one? Been seeing them driving around town lately, kind of intrigued. Checking online you can get them for around 6-8k. Thinking one would be cool for doing stuff around my property and running around town.

I want this one but it appears they are sold out.
minitrucks.net

1996 Suzuki Carry Lift Dump 4WD

This 1998 Suzuki Carry Lift Dump is a great work truck with amazing capability and practicality. This mini lift dump truck comes with AC, 4WD, a 5 speed transmission with an extra low crawler gear and axle lock. This combination makes it a great all around vehicle; combining great off-road...
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There's half a dozen driving around where I live about four of which seem to getting used as the runabouts for local business owners. Basically a bunch of people who need a shitty old mini-truck amount of truck but don't want to be slapping their company magnet on the door and swinging by customer's sites in a POS.

My dad looked into them and even checked out and test drove a few before buying a Maverick. They're cramped, rough, riding and don't keep up with modern traffic. Their payload capabilities is mostly a reflection of the Japanese actually rating them to what they're good for whereas everything intended for sale here is rated far more conservatively. There's not a lot of people who that combination of attributes makes sense for.
 
They are popular on farms around here. For a while people had some tricks to getting them tagged, but last year they seem to have closed the loopholes and even sent cancelation of tag notices to a bunch of people who had them tagged.

Where I live they would be a good store runner. In town its rare to get over 35-45 mph.

However I want a M274 instead and those can be road tagged. Just keep choking on the prices. And the idiot drivers here would kill me with no driver protection
 
I too have been interested in one if my Yamaha Rhino ever shits the bed. I read somewhere that they are hard to source parts for. I don't know if that is true or not.
 
They seem to spiritually have more in common with a 1981 toyota pickup then a modern Tacoma. Seems a fun choice for around town trucking. Also kind of the samurai of pickups. I want one.
 
jeeptj19992001 said:
Spend too much money for a high mileage, old truck that is hard to get parts for.
Sign me up.

Oh look location is in japan...
Shipping to NYC harbor is 2k


I believe texas just changed the law to allow them on the road.
Click to expand...
NY recently banned them from being registered.

I'm not sure if this is occurring, but I did hear of cancelation of registrations/void titles too.
 
Cool little trucks, cheap to get straight from importer. A marine mechanic friend has one for working on boats, fits in tight places in marinas, carries way more than you think it should, fold down sides are cool. The lack of lockable and dry space kinda sucks, a jacket and lunch box take up all the passenger seat but it's perfect for around town stuff. It's actually pretty funny to see him dragging 200k center consoles around the lot with a $2500 mini truck.
 
Btdt

Don't.

Getting rid of them is like finalizing divorce or getting off probation.

You take whatever money is offered, at whatever loss necessary, you call in a to go order at your steakhouse and pick up a tall boy, then "celebrate" alone in the dark and eat it telling yourself you'll never do something that stupid every again
 
Projectjunkie said:
Btdt

Don't.

Getting rid of them is like finalizing divorce or getting off probation.

You take whatever money is offered, at whatever loss necessary, you call in a to go order at your steakhouse and pick up a tall boy, then "celebrate" alone in the dark and eat it telling yourself you'll never do something that stupid every again
Click to expand...
If they're so great why would you get rid of it? :flipoff2::stirthepot:
 
They are a novelty for 99% of users. The other 1% need 2 of them because parts are impossible to come by. My Honda Acty used a motor that was basically half a Hondagold wing motor. Parts were not obtainable. I sold it to someone and was glad to see it go. If I still had it, I would put it on a SxS chassis.
 
Hydromaster said:
Over in Billings
www.ktvq.com

Downsizing to small import truck helps Billings man cut costs

Peyton Hathaway, a Billings resident, is one of a handful of people across the country opting to downsize to a small imported Japanese truck known as a kei truck.
www.ktvq.com www.ktvq.com

You can lic/plate wheelers , side by sides too. They’re all over town.
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bullshit. As soon as something breaks on that half a gold wing motor he is done. Tires, timing belt, everything is hard to get. If his downtime costs anything, a GMT800 or 1st Gen tundra will be way cheaper.
 
We called them "bongos" when I lived in Korea.
We had a terrorist van model that held like 8 small people.
Other one was a "two" seater that was pretty much a golf cart.

I remember 2 dudes going across the flightline, hitting the brakes and standing it on the windshield 🤣
 
I had 2 of the subaru versions when my shop burned down in '14. they are handy up until they're too small. thats all I got.
 
det107 said:
I was told by the dealer in Goshen that one can get farm plates.

Jever see the yuge collection of KEIs on Berea Rd in Montgomery yet?
Click to expand...
Farm plates very limit you for their use and travel distance.
25 miles max one way.
Also limits you to where you go.
Don't have to get it inspected.
1000005615.jpg
 
DMG said:
They are a novelty for 99% of users. The other 1% need 2 of them because parts are impossible to come by. My Honda Acty used a motor that was basically half a Hondagold wing motor. Parts were not obtainable. I sold it to someone and was glad to see it go. If I still had it, I would put it on a SxS chassis.
Click to expand...
I bet if you're really, really, really savvy you can pick and choose one that'll have the same motor as some lawn mower and same transmission as some obscure car, etc, etc. Kinda like how there's golf carts running around with D30s and Ford 9's. But if you know enough to be able to do that you're probably an importer or closely enough advised by one that you could buy an oddball and be just fine.

That said, I think you professional mechanics frequently over-blow parts issue. You see shit all the time that fails inspection for shit like a cracked tail light and it's not that parts aren't available, it's that some fuckwad is unwilling to fire up car-part and call junkyards outside the immediate region until he finds one that can ship. Went through that shit last month fixing a Toyota gas filler door that was basically unavailable because it was specific to that cab/bed config. A mechanically savvy buyer who's not afraid to google a part number would probably be fine. Or some part isn't available but if you google the year/make/model and part you'll find that the reason the part isn't available is because Dorman or whoever makes one for the next/prior generation and it works just fine so that's what everyone does.
 
Projectjunkie said:
Btdt

Don't.

Getting rid of them is like finalizing divorce or getting off probation.

You take whatever money is offered, at whatever loss necessary, you call in a to go order at your steakhouse and pick up a tall boy, then "celebrate" alone in the dark and eat it telling yourself you'll never do something that stupid every again
Click to expand...
Is it you that said you need two of them to start with if you want one to drive? Everyone I know that’s had one has had a parts one, says they’re fun but not worth the trouble.
 
det107 said:
I was told by the dealer in Goshen that one can get farm plates.

Jever see the yuge collection of KEIs on Berea Rd in Montgomery yet?
Click to expand...
I haven't. I'll have to check it out next time I'm at the farmers museum tractor pulls.

My buddy bought one from the Goshen place before the ban.
 
Can't be too hard to swap in a decent driveline. I've wanted one for a long time, and I'll just plate it in a friendly state should I pick one up.
 
A cheap 6.0 power stroke project truck might give a better pleasure/pain outcome:laughing:


I started the same thread on pirate, ignored the game warnings because I'm a really good mechanic and can find hard to find parts and can rig stuff and match stuff up, so I bought one project, then the parts truck, and eventually figured out that they are a well thought out plan backed by the kimono wearing Japanese royalty to break the will of a subset of fighting age American men as a payback for that nuclear thing:laughing:



when someone asks about kei cars
How hard I pronounce the F in fuck no:laughing:

F870C78WcAEu3Ug.jpeg
 
DMG said:
They are a novelty for 99% of users. The other 1% need 2 of them because parts are impossible to come by. My Honda Acty used a motor that was basically half a Hondagold wing motor. Parts were not obtainable. I sold it to someone and was glad to see it go. If I still had it, I would put it on a SxS chassis.
Click to expand...
This . They don’t hold up to farm use , parts are hard to find and they’re fragile . Tons of farmers have purchased them over the last few decades here but they end up being drug to the weeds or retired to mailbox duty typically
 
arse_sidewards said:
I bet if you're really, really, really savvy you can pick and choose one that'll have the same motor as some lawn mower and same transmission as some obscure car, etc, etc. Kinda like how there's golf carts running around with D30s and Ford 9's. But if you know enough to be able to do that you're probably an importer or closely enough advised by one that you could buy an oddball and be just fine.

That said, I think you professional mechanics frequently over-blow parts issue. You see shit all the time that fails inspection for shit like a cracked tail light and it's not that parts aren't available, it's that some fuckwad is unwilling to fire up car-part and call junkyards outside the immediate region until he finds one that can ship. Went through that shit last month fixing a Toyota gas filler door that was basically unavailable because it was specific to that cab/bed config. A mechanically savvy buyer who's not afraid to google a part number would probably be fine. Or some part isn't available but if you google the year/make/model and part you'll find that the reason the part isn't available is because Dorman or whoever makes one for the next/prior generation and it works just fine so that's what everyone does.
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Find me a head gasket for an efi 94 Honda Acty with the 3 cylinder. Or any part of the bizarre awd drivetrain but let’s focus on the HG.
 
Dethmachinefab said:
Can't be too hard to swap in a decent driveline. I've wanted one for a long time, and I'll just plate it in a friendly state should I pick one up.
Click to expand...
Mine had an awd transaxle drivetrain behind the seats sort of off to the left and was awd. The radiator was under there, too.

There was really no swap that would keep the awd. If you don’t care about awd/4wd it gets easier but nothing is in the right place so swaps will not be easy.
 
DMG said:
Find me a head gasket for an efi 94 Honda Acty with the 3 cylinder. Or any part of the bizarre awd drivetrain but let’s focus on the HG.
Click to expand...
eBay -> "Honda acty head gasket" -> get variety of part numbers -> google them all -> figure out from listings there's two engines, the E05A and E07a used from 90-99 -> corroborate most of this on Wikipedia -> go back to eBay listings -> see that one is cheap and readily available from a handful of mini-truck parts suppliers and that the other is 2x the price and available from fewer suppliers.

Is this harder than firing up an auto parts website and punching in a year/make/model or VIN? Yes. But this is far from rocket science and basically the same workflow I use when ordering parts for basically everything with an engine that isn't a car (or plane). That said, I bet hard parts and rarely replaced shit are frequently hard to source with a good degree of confidence and I assume that's when people start buying parts trucks.

Took me as long to type that shit out documenting my progress as it did to do it.

E05A:
www.ebay.com

Honda Acty Head Gasket E05A Fits HA1 HA2 HH1 HH2 Models | eBay

Our connections in Japan and Taiwan allow us to make availableHonda Acty Parts andSubaru Sambar Parts. If you are looking for quality and friendly service, minitruck.ca is the best place to look, and whether it isMitsubishi Minicab Parts orKei Truck Parts you are looking for, we are here to help.
www.ebay.com

E07A:
www.ebay.com

Genuine Honda Acty HA3 HA4 HH3 HH4 Beat PP1 Head Gasket E07A 12251-P64-004 JDM | eBay

Model HA3 / HA4 / HH3 /HH4. Engine E07A. Condition: New Genuine.
www.ebay.com
 
DMG said:
Mine had an awd transaxle drivetrain behind the seats sort of off to the left and was awd. The radiator was under there, too.

There was really no swap that would keep the awd. If you don’t care about awd/4wd it gets easier but nothing is in the right place so swaps will not be easy.
Click to expand...
Thinking a kubota swap would be cool.
 
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