Bigblockquad said:
I'm having a problem getting ahold of RBT. For the last two weeks I've called and left several messages and a couple Emails, all of which have gone unanswered. Has anybody else experienced this problem? Any advise would be appreciated.
Lloyd and I have been friends for over ten years. And it's virtually impossible to get him to return an e-mail. He once told me that he checks e-mail so infrequently, that when he does, he has 2500+ messages in his in-box, mostly idle chatter from the Pantera e-mail forum. He rolls his eyes, grits his teeth, highlights all the messages and deletes them.
I have only so-so luck in getting him to return phone calls too.
Yet every time I happen to visit LA I drive by there, and he's just the nicest guy in the world--very friendly, genuine, and sincere. Even before the GT40 explosion, he was chronically overworked, and now it has become worse by orders of magnitude. His workshop is organized, yet invariably it has the appearance of chaos, as he is working on several gearboxes at once.
He is absolutely dedicated to quality and will take no shortcuts, which means that production is limited as a result. Last time I was there, I asked him about bringing on one or two workers to help with the backlog. He told me that he has a fellow that works part-time doing basic monkey-work (stripping down customer gearboxes and running the pieces through the parts-washer), but when it comes to analysis/diagnosis/repairs/reassembly, that is something that he alone can do. There are only a handful of people with the necessary experience and qualifications to work on these gearboxes, and of course Lloyd doesn't have the time to 'take somebody to school'. I know several other people who are equally qualified, and Lloyd has asked them to help him out, but they are overwhelmed with their own businesses (plus they are scattered in other parts of the country), so each has had to sadly turn him down.
Just today, in fact, I got a phone call from a guy who knows that I know Lloyd, asking for help--he sent his gearbox down there in October 2006 to have it overhauled, and has yet to hear back regarding the diagnosis/projected cost/projected delivery date. I am going down to LA for New Year's and will probably drop in and visit Lloyd on January 2nd, so I will post any information I can after that.
If you want to place an order for a gearbox, I might suggest an unorthodox method--place a deposit check in an envelope and mail it to him, with your contact information. I'm sure he opens his mail, and upon receiving a check I'm sure he would feel compelled to phone to formalize the order. That tactic might save several weeks of waiting time.
Above all, patience is necessary. Speaking of patience, Dennis Quella rebuilt my Pantera gearbox, and it took him almost three years!!!!!
