It is with a great degree of sadness that I report to you now on the passing of my Moke‘Twenge’ (1973-2017). Its presence had graced my back garden for some 10 years and 11 months but alas it's now no more.
Let's go back in time then to the noughties and it was in the Year of Our Lord twenty 06 when I first became acquainted with the deceased.
After seeing a ‘for sale’ advert for a Moke in the Cairns Post newspaper I immediately phoned, got the location and within an hour was looking at a Moke over at Yorkey's Knob, a suburb of Cairns. If you wanted to buy a Moke in those days you had to be as quick as !
Antony Roberts, the owner of theMoke said he had another Moke stored at his mother's place and was happy to sell it to me sight unseen for an extra $500 - couldn't go wrong there. So I bought both Mokes.
When the tow truck turned up at my place 2 days later with the Moke I hadn't seen I was astounded- for the price it didn't look too bad at all - the wheels went round so no worries getting it into my back garden but there was more - upside down on the tray was another Moke engine, complete with sub-frame and 2 wheels.So two engines = ‘Twenge’.An obvious name!
Antony told me that this Moke had not been registered for at least 9 years and back then it was used on a farm on the Tablelands.It had riveted plates on the pannier sides, the foot controlled dip switch was on the dash, the wiring loom had been by-passed in several places and the seats were non-standard and were too big to fit properly - so quite a challenge! The second engine was what was left of a write-off on the same farm.
Slight deviation - The Moke which I had gone to look at was named ‘Yorkey’and after ‘MOKE RESTORATION 4’ was sold to Bob and Vicky who live in Cairns.Back to ‘Twenge’ . . .
So there it sat for a decade not exactly collecting dust because it was always covered over. In fact it outlived 5 covers!
In February 2017, Mark Brewer our local Moke Guru promised to give me a hand with the Mokes I had put in the ‘too hard basket’ which are 4 in number. In April he came round to my place and picked ‘Twenge’ for starters so I got preparations going for its short journey to the road out front.
A wheel change - one with a good tyre was swopped for the one on the Moke which was flat. Then all tyres up to 40psi - All brakes adjusted so they were well off and off it went at 3 inches a minute with me behind using a circa 1939 railway-track crowbar to good effect. It was then and only then that I noticed the engine upside down in the back had no cylinder head! Woe, woe and thrice woe and what a twit I was not to have noticed it before! Anyway, I almost had it to the road when Mark and Andrew arrived to help.
On the road and ready, Mark was thinking about a tow truck. But Aardvark Autos is only two blocks from my place. So Andrew suggested that we should just push it there - so we did!
Andrew and Mark went to work on it without delay and before you could say "Hey presto" it was thoroughly investigated and the decision made to scrap it. Its body, not being galvanised. was too far gone everywhere. However all was not lost - far from it.
‘Twenge's’ engine turned out to be a 1098cc and will be O.K. after Mark's overhaul. It didn't have the correct gearbox but the other engine did and it was O.K!
Many other vital organs from the Moke's countenance were carefully extracted and will be donated towards the rebirth of ‘Max‘ which has a fantastic galvanised body,but nothing else at the moment! Stay tuned!
