New Moke Owner 1965 UK Little Wheeler in Oregon

[Nigel(no top)Sykes]

I quite agree Roger, I think it's one of those things that's OK 9 times out of 10. It's the 10th time that you worry about .

[Nigel(no top)Sykes]

Chris, I was going to say I usually get an 8X4 of plywood, pin out the old loom on it and then start operating .... That way you know the new wires are going to be in the right place

[clm]

All I can do right now is plan the loom, once the plan is set in stone it should only take me a couple of days at most to get it together once the shell is done, But yeah I will end up using the moke itself to build the loom to the right size seeing as I am using a mishmash of moke late mini and new bits and measuring lengths would be a guestimate at the moment.

Chris

[fistral fig]

Wow...............I understand why you are doing that, to comply with most american towing the moke is essentially a lighting board I guess, I was wondering what the 2 red power cables were for then realised they were on the paper, he he..FF

[clm]

I put the 1100 up on a work bench to see about swapping the tail housing and.. well I ran into another issue. It seems the transmission currently has a 4.27:1 final drive in it. That is not going to be usable on the 10's. So my next option is swapping gearboxes with the old 850 I had in my original mini which I brought home from my moms house a couple of days ago, It should be a much better ratio as the 850 didn't seem to be over-revving to go places. Oh.. and the transmission currently on the 1100 needs a new tail housing anyways... it was built up and painted with an enormous crack in the tail housing!



On the moke side of things I have been working on the pannier tops while I was waiting for the new panels to arrive.





They are almost ready but they were put on the back burner again because...

New Panels arrived!



Panels and brake parts!



Knowing me I had to go toss them on the Moke to see the nice new floor in-situ. Once that was over with I went and patched up the 6 incorrect holes in the floor and painted the inside of the rear subframe crossmember.



Seeing as those panels were there I realized I needed to get cracking on the rear hullsides so started on breaking down the last large section of the original moke. While cutting the floor out I was surprised to find the rear subframe mounts not welded to the subframe crossmember.





I originally decided to leave the rear wings on temporarily to add support so I wouldn't overly damage the rear hullsides and rear panel... until.. I realized the hullsides were not even welded to the rear panel! The only thing holding them together was the rear wings and the remnants of the floor. So off they came!







My current plan right now is to continue working on the inner hull sides until they are usable then start assembling the rear of the moke.

The condition they are in is really bad and I likely should just replace them instead of patching them, however if I can patch them while keeping certain things intact I can retain my datum points and know where they will have to go.

Until next time,

Chris

[Nigel(no top)Sykes]

Gotta be said Chris, with that 4.2 diff and 10" wheels you'd certainly be able to embarrass a few YankTanks away from the lights

[clm]

True.... but only until the other side of the intersection when I would be full out in top gear and they would just be shifting into second

Chris

[grantourer]

True.... but only until the other side of the intersection when I would be full out in top gear and they would just be shifting into second

Chris

Ahh, but the humilaion would have been achieved, especially if it is some guy trying to impress a young lady.

[Nigel(no top)Sykes]

And..... Don't forget the speed limit is 30mph in town (I'm sure you stick to it)

[clm]

In town.. but on the highway 30 would get me run over! D:

Chris

[clm]

I am done with one of the hullsides, it needs some cleanup and welding on at this point. I think I even impressed myself with how it turned out seeing as it was the worst one of the two

It likely would have been easier to make a new one, but I don't have enough steel for it and this kept my datum points. The shock turrets are going to need work eventually but they will work for now. I literally had to replace the edge of the panel on 3 of it's 4 sides, the 4th got out easy because it had never been welded so really didn't have any rust (!)



First thing I did after deafening myself grinding down all the welds was try fitting the wing to it and.. surprise surprise.. It still fit nearly perfectly!



So I went and pulled the inner jig out of the moke so I could start fitting up panels to test the fit...





Which then had the pannier tops added... and then the rear wing. Wow I had one of these before... I think I cut it up because it was rusty!





I need to get cracking on the other rear hullside next and once everything lines up to my satisfaction I can finish welding the moke together... For the most part. I will only be bolting the rear panel and the pannier sides on for now as I want to be able to get in there and do more work later.

Until next time
The Mad Moke Builder
Chris

[clm]

Cracking has commenced!

Well, since my last post I managed to rebuild the other rear hullside and remaining issues I had with the pannier tops.

I then set to jigging up everything I could to see what I needed to do to start welding it. As I was happy with the location of the load floor channel that attaches to the heelboard I did a few stitch welds as I don't have access to the bottom right now to weld it properly. I also welded the two load floor corner supports to the rear hullsides when they were in the right place.









Once everything was primed, the load floor channel tacked, the braces installed and the pannier tops ready, I started my honest to goodness assembly so I could proceed towards welding everything together. The hullsides got the top half of where they lap welded, I will need to pull the floor out one more time to finish them.





Then I started on the RH pannier top. Out of curiosity I laid a straight edge from side to side and.. well, I was surprised on how level they already were.

LH


RH


I have the LH side to weld up tomorrow and hopefully more of the rear section. It's definitely not perfect. But it is going together well enough that I should get many decades of use out of the old moke

I am very happy that every day it seems to be racing towards being able to be removed from the jig and bolted to some subframes, It is an amazing transformation from..



to this.



And just because I felt like it, here is a bit of a jumpy walk around video taken with my Phone. It's definitely a moke again and no longer a pile of panels!


(it's a movie click on the picture above)

Moking Right Along
Chris

[Nigel(no top)Sykes]

Two, no three, questions spring to mind. 1. What colour (translation..color) will it be now its finished 2. Is that an 18 volt Makita 'driver sat inside the shell. And 3. Have you got your wiper motor yet ?

[clm]

1 Um, yes.
2 Um, yes... and no It's a Ryobi
And like a mind reader as I just found it on the front porch this morning...
3 Um, yes!

Paint for now is going to be primer grey multicolored rolling project goodness, eventually it is going to be some bright color so I can have less chance of getting run over by all of the 'yank tanks' out on the road! I would love to do it up in the spruce green but I fear I would end up being a speed bump D:

I have used the 18v Ryobi on this since I started.

And yes the wiper motor showed up, how much do you want for it!?

Chris

[Nigel(no top)Sykes]

HaHaHa I meant to say ryobi .... Just been in the garage and counted 3 of them lying around, plus there must be about half a dozen more at work. I remember a few years back they were giving them away . Buy a couple of thousand screws and you got 5 of them plus a chop saw

As to the motor, it cost me about 30 of your colonial dollars to post it to your good self. As to the thing itself, take a look at it and tell me what you think it's worth !! But send no money, keep it for me for when I want to buy something from the US.(then ill get you to do it for me))