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Story of Agent Orange will be here soon.
mid '94: Agent Orange was bought and within a month I broke the celica transmission. not surprising as it was a well worked 308 running Airsensors fuel injection and the celica boxes just can't cope with any decent engine. Immediately the box was replaced with a twin turbo alloy case supra 5 speed. These boxes are good for 450hp and a dual line system was fabricated for safety and redundancy.
late '94: Agent Orange and the then gf (now wife) had a little altercation with a trench amongst other things so a quick cleanup plan was being arranged.
later '94: the banjo 3.08 diff gave up and shattered itself into a million pieces. The axles? - they crumbled as I took them out. This pretty much forced the start of the cleanup so the shell was stripped to bare metal and repairs were started. I really should thank my brother-in-law tom for his help stripping the car. Thanks Tom. Oh and the beer helped a lot too. Anyway, I wanted a bit of a break so I sent the then nameless Agent Orange to trans diff to get a 9 inch diff. This was made using volvo tubes and axles so the same stud pattern could be kept. Agent Orange also now had volvo discs at the rear. Whilst the rear brakes were being upgraded it was decided to build a race capable brake system all round. Archie Robertson from Archie Robertson Auto and Marine had 11.5" rotors custom made and modified the fronts to carry volvo 4 piston callipers. The master cylinder was relocated and a dual line system was fabricated for safety and redundancy.
early '95: The quick cleanup and motor rebuild idea was out the door and serious plans were made to proceed with something different under the bonnet - an Auscar engine. Archie pulled the engine out and rebuilt the engine to almost 100% Auscar specs (differs in size, injection, manifold, balancer and exhaust). for those who don't know, Archie invented the Auscar concept together bob jane and raced Auscars for many years. I think he knows a little about Auscars....
mid '95 - '98: Nothing, nada, nil, zip, jackshit. Project was on hold and for various reasons it stayed that way 'til January '98 last year.
jan'99: The decision was made to get back into the project and a sad and sorry car was pulled out of the garage. Given the amount of surface rust there was no option but to glass blast the body. This only worked about 80%.
feb '99: Agent Orange was taken to Brendan who owns and runs Croydon Car Detailing. They focus mainly on complete resto's and specialise in classic cars. As Agent Orange was delivered to Brendan there was a '58 Austin Healey, '50's Detroit fairlane, replica AC Cobra and '68 mustang in his workshop; that says a lot. After seeing finished examples (inc. a $1mill benz) I had no problems handing the Agent over to Brendan. First thing - a proper sand blasting. Although I was hesitant about sand blasting, having heard horror stories and seen results of bad sand blasting, Brendan assured me it could be done without a problem, and so it was; the Agent came up a treat. Brendan sourced a brand new (in gm plastic!) nosecone and found excellent condition guards. Over the next months, Brendan and his team worked the body completely straight.
may '99: Vancryl 977 straight ORANGE 2-pack tinter was applied. This is a special 2-pack that dries best at moderate temperature (ie no ovens). Only thing is, it takes a good 2-3 months to dry before you can do any work on it.
oct '99: The body and paint was as finished as it could be so it was time to get the interior done. I spent the few months prior to October looking around for a good trimmer and thought found one in Shane from Rad Trimming' I'd seen Shane's work before and he came recommended. What a mistaka to maka. Want to get stuffed around, ignored, bullshitted to and just totally shafted? Take your car to Shane in Kilsyth; Shane's a specialist at it. What was supposed to take 4 weeks took 6 months. It was only 50% completed and what was done was poorly rushed at that.
mar '00: Had a hell of time getting Agent Orange out of Rad Trimming but finally did so in March this year. I took Agent Orange to Stylyn Car Audio' where the owner, Adam also runs his auto and marine trimming business. Thankfully Adam and Keith are true professionals and have completed the interior as well as installed a tidy audio system.
june '00: New items purchased, 2 x Prime stars & 2 x Dragway Draqlites wheels, Yelle Terra heads. Engine is getting readied for the final assemble.
oct '00: Engine is in the car! wiring, exhaust to be finished.
jan '01: Well, we didn't make the Nats :(. The Agent is close to being finished. Finally got the car reg'd.
feb '01: Not surprising there's a few bugs and issues that need to be worked out before the Agent is ready. Expecting a march finish.
feb '01: On it's first official outing the Agent was smashed beyond repair by a moronic fairlane driver. May he experience the pain having 5 years of hopes and dreams taken from him many times over. If karma is fair, he will suffer. See the accident here.