SLO 077 – A beginners Moke project Craig, aka Shifta, tells about the restoration of his Moke from its early days as his brothers unfinished project through to a neat little Moke.

My brother bought the car running and registered about 6 years ago. He drove it occasionally, but then decided to strip it down and restore it. The car made it as far as a rolling shell, then sat in the carport and shed for about 5 years. My brother moved out of my house straight after stripping the car so I decided to take on his project and bought it off him. 2 of those years the car was just sitting on dirt but at least it was out of the weather. This year I had to make a decision - get rid of it or sink money and effort into trying to get it back on the road. With no previous painting experience and no idea overall, I decided to have a go.

Tried it myself but didn't turn out so good. Ideally replacing most of the floor would have been a good idea but I just didn't have the skills or resources. Luckily a mate came to the rescue and he welded up parts of the floor for me. I was always going to black undercarriage spray on the floor so wasn't too concerned about the finish. I used seam sealer around the weld bits and tried my hand at using Body Filler for the first time (bog). I learnt pretty quickly what happens when you use too much bog - spent ages sanding it all back. Overall it came out ok - by no means perfect but a lot better than it was.

I never planned on going back to bare metal so the body work consisted of rubbing and sanding back all the paint to get the shine off. Some more body filler was used in places to fill the odd dent or scratch here and there. I've got a lot more respect for panel beaters now as that isn't as easy as it looks. A few spots went back to metal and I attacked any rust I found with the wire wheel. The bonnet and side panels all came off and I did all those on the workbench. I did all this with the wheels off and the car up on jack stands. The wheels, bumpers and cage all got worked on in the workshop. I made the decision to paint them instead of powder coating ( see list of things I'd do differently ) so the wheels were wire wheeled back to metal.

Every man and his dog has an opinion about what paint to use. In the end I got really fed up with conflicting advice and was almost going to pack it in when I dropped in to see a mate who had just finished painting his old Mazda. He used white Acrylic and was rubbing it back with 1200 before giving it a polish. Seemed easy enough so that was my decision. I wanted to stay with red as that was the original colour although I decided on a new colour in the end - Ford Vixen Red. Initially I didn't get enough paint as I only just had enough for the car and panels. I first bought 2 litres and bought more later for touching up so in hindsight, 3 litres would have been better.

For some reason I decided to do the floor first and also decided not to use primer. I had the idea that the black under body spray would apply good enough if the surface was prepped ok. In hindsight I'm not sure if this was the best decision. Painting the whole car in primer first would have been easier. Instead I had to mask up the car, paint the floor, de-mask, then when the floor was dry, mask that up and concentrate on the rest of the car body. In the end it worked ok but I may have saved time doing it differently. I didn't have a spray gun that I could use for the under body so I decided to use a combination of Brush, roller and spray can. The spray cans worked really well but were fairly expensive. The tinned stuff was cheaper but didn't look as good. I ended up using a little foam roller to apply most of it, touched up with the brush and did a final coat with the cans. It came out ok. I've got rubber mats over the top anyway so all up it was effective.

My shed was brand new and I was a bit paranoid about making a mess so I rigged up two cheap gazebo frames and made a plastic drop sheet booth. It worked really well except ventilation was an issue. Right before spraying I went over the whole car with Prep wash, then masked everything up. By this time I had removed the Dash trays, heater and masked up the Speedo part of the dash. I then masked up the entire floor as it was already black and I didn't need to primer it. I started spraying the primer with just a dusk mask on - bad move. A couple of beers and getting high on primer was not good and I only just managed to get the job done. All up I went round the car about 4 times. I used a cheap non-gravity feed gun to spray the primer - the gun cost me about $40. Straight after spraying I went and bought a proper respirator mask with replaceable filter. It was a really good move as instead of concentrating on trying to breathe, with the mask on you can concentrate on the job you are doing.

I left the car for a couple of days then started the rubbing back task. The folds, corners and edges on the moke are really hard to work with. It's really easy to rub too far and you need to respray that section. I lightly sprayed the whole car with cheap black paint and used that as a guide for where I needed to be rubbed back. I used a combination of scourer pads and 360/600 sandpaper for this task. The first coat of Primer is rubbed back with 360. After it was all done, I masked everything up again and made sure the floor was sealed. I then sprayed Primer again, then rubbed it back with the 600 and scourer pads. All ready for paint.

I decided to paint the car without the booth set up as it was a little cramped and poorly ventilated. I moved a heap of stuff out of the shed and painted the car in the middle of it. The primer was sprayed with a cheap 30 Litre compressor but I wasn't sure if it was ok for the paint. Just in case, I borrowed my mates old belt driven compressor which was about 50 litres in capacity. With everything set to go, I mixed up the paint but it turns out I mixed it too thick. I was going by the same ratio that I mixed the primer but it turned out the primer was a different brand to the paint ( got it from a different place ). Unfortunately there were no instructions on the can and I got it from a mate who works at a car parts joint that also mixes paint. He didn't know much about it. Next time I will just stick with the local paint shop for my products and advice. Luckily it didn't cause too much of an issue apart from me worrying that I would run out of paint. I think from memory I managed to get round the car about 4 times. As soon as I started I realised the small compressor was not up to the job so I swapped all the fittings around and used the big one. Straight away there were 2 problems. The gravity fed gun I bought off Ebay was leaking red paint everywhere and the hose connection was leaking air and moisture where it connected to the gun. I played a round with it all but nothing helped so I had to keep going, doing the best I could to not get paint or water drops on the car or panels. It was quite an ordeal as I couldn’t just concentrate on the painting as much as I would have liked. Luckily I had covered the floor in drop sheets as I made a thorough mess. It turns out the hose leaking air was a saviour as the moisture was leaking out before it got to the car. I should have bought a water trap but had no idea what that was until I told the paint shop guy later on what happened. Once out of paint I had done all I could do so spent ages and heaps of thinners cleaning the gun and everything. I left the paint for about 2 weeks to dry as it was fairly cold at the time.

After weighing up the costs I decided to paint the wheels, grille and bumpers instead of powder coating them. This is one of my biggest regrets. By the time I bought paint, more primer, thinners, and wire wheels, it didn't work out that much cheaper. It took ages to do as well. They look ok but the paint is easier to stretch and seems to be less resilient than powder coating. Just to rub it in, the wheels on my 68 Colt are powder coated and they came out HEAPS better. The dash trays and metal strip along the window I sprayed with grey enamel from a can. The windscreen and roll cage I sprayed with decent "rust kill" spray enamel. The windscreen I did an Aluminium colour and the roll cage white. I decided on the grey/aluminium colour for the windscreen as I didn't want to draw attention it – the car and the wheels deserve the attention instead.

One thing most people agreed on was that if you use Acrylic you have to buff it. I bought a Ryobi 180mm grinder polisher and a big foam polishing pad. Also got some Buffing compound, Fireglaze wax, and a couple of Meguiers Foam pads. I first set about wet rubbing the car with wet 1200 sandpaper. It was really tricky around the edges and in a couple of spots, I went too far. The bonnet was one of those spots. I wasn’t happy with the bonnet anyway so ended up respraying it later on. All the other spots that I rubbed too far were easily fixed with some touch up paint, then another wet rub and then polish. The new paint actually blends in with the paint already there. The irony is that if I’d used Enamel I wouldn’t have had to wet rub the car so wouldn’t have rubbed back too far, but being Acrylic allowed fixing it easier! Using the polisher to buff was difficult at first but I slowly got the hang of it. I did the bonnet and most of the flat panels with the buffer, then went over the rest of the car with the foam pads. It took a while and was hard in spots but didn’t look too bad in the end.

Once all painted and polished, I had to start putting it back together. Because I didn't actually take it apart, it proved quite difficult. Several trips to the hardware store for bolts and a quite a few calls to my brother, and it was starting to take shape. The front seats were a nightmare to get it in and the back required two people as one needed to get under the car to hold the nuts. Because I didn't know how the roof went on, I left it off for weeks after it was painted. Luckily I got motivated and figured it out. I found a Canvas place that makes tents and campervans etc. They sold me new studs for the canopy to click into. All new screws and fittings and the roof was on. My plan was to get Historic Registration so I sourced a standard steering wheel and replaced the old crappy sports wheel. I then gave it another quick once over with wax and buffed out by hand any imperfections I had missed. All up she was done and waiting for new plates.

When my brother took it off the road, it seemed to run ok but it has been sitting for over 5 years. I tried several times to get it running and after a few Moke.com posts and some good advice, I finally got her to fire. New plugs and a bit of tune and she runs ok. It needs a proper tune but so far so good. Now that it was driveable, the brakes showed their true form. Back to the Moke forums for more advice. In the end I bought a new master cylinder and spent hours bleeding the brakes. They are still not fantastic but they work, so that will do for now. There was an evil exhaust leak from underneath the carby but luckily it turned out that the exhaust clamp/band was loose so I was able to get it nice and tight and she is all fixed.

It was a lot harder job than I thought but I learnt a lot along the way. I’ve made some dot points below regarding the mistakes I made so hopefully someone may get some use out of them.

·When your brother says he is stripping the Moke, watch him do it and keep track of where everything goes. Not having stripped the car myself made it really hard to put back together.

·Get heaps of supplies - over compensate. You will avoid going back to Bunnings and the paint shop 20+ times and you’ll probably use the stuff on your next project anyway ( my next project was painting an old 50’s Fridge!!).

·Buy a decent gun and practice heaps before you start on the car. If possible, get someone to show you how the gun works. $59 gravity gun on ebay is not a "good" gun!

·Don't paint the car in the middle of winter and if you do, buy or borrow a decent water trap for the compressor. This will save you stress, effort and money as you won't have to repaint the bonnet twice

·Make sure you know the right paint mixture before leaving the store. Primer and paint will have different ratios. Different paint brands will also have different mixtures. The tin you buy may not have a label with instructions so check before you leave. Speak to the guy at the paint shop as much as you can.