Re: George Blake - Prime Gears out of Business
If he is selling a turbo400/4l80e adapter and output shaft kit or a new TCI trans controller, I would be interested. They would probably be mine. The ones he said he could sell for me soon before he disappeared. I never got paid for them and he never returned my calls regarding sending them back.
When he built my 4L80e trans (paid $3,800) he said he had a home for my extra adaptor kit and new TCI controller. I gave them to him and never heard back. Also the trans was supposed to have a billet 34 sprag drum for which I was billed $1,000+. When I installed the trans and it never shifted correctly. I pulled it out with approx 100 miles and took it to RPM transmission and was present when they opened it. Guess what? It didn't have the billet drum. It had a 34 sprag on the stock drum. Cost around $600 from Coan or Rossler.
This was the new trans that I originally purchased from someone on the board that told me he got it from George. It sat for about three months before i went to install it. At that time I called George to ask him some questions about it. I told me he never sold this person a trans (even though this seller gave me a invoice from George). George told me that was an estimate that he had given this person, but had never sold him a trans. The original receipt showed a $500 billet input shaft, $500 center shaft and the 34 sprag with the stock drum. Plus a number of other HD parts.
George convinced me to send him the trans and he would check it out. I did and he called me several days later and told me it was a junkyard trans and had nothing done to it. He then suggested I put in the HD billet pieces inculding the billet drum and he would rebuild everything for $3,800 and also suggested that I get a new style PCS trans controller. This is when he told me he could sell my new TCI controller for me. I had a second adapter and shaft kit and he offered to used it on another build and sent me the money for it.
Also the original seller of the trans sold me a new Coan converter with the trans. He said it was a 3,400 stall HD Coan. It only stalled at 2,400. I called Coan and they said it was not their converter. After several days of hunting down the maker it turned out to be from TCS. They are now restalling it to 3,400.
I now have approx $11,000 in my 4l80e conversion if you include the $1,000 George still owes me for the adapter kit and trans controller.
While I am on this rant. The same guy that originally sold me the trans sold me a "new" set of RPm Brodix heads at the same time. He also had a receipt from RPM for these. Again after a couple of months when I went to put them on, I had my head guy at Lingenfelters flow them as I wanted to see how their bench comparred to Mike's at RPM. They only flowed 240cfm which is what Brodix advertised stock. Mikes sheet showed 300 cfm. Lingenfelters told me that there was little to no port work done and that the valves and springs were stock Brodix NA stuff.
I called Mike only to find out that he never sold this guy a set of heads. The guy had asked Mike prior to selling me the heads for an estimate price and a flow sheet and convinced Mike that he was going to buy a set from him in the near future.
By the time I ported them, new valves, springs, etc, it cost me another $2,000 on top of the $3,500 I paid for the "new clone" RPM Brodix heads. This guy used RPM paper, then bought a set from Brodix ($2,400) and con'ed them to me as RPM built heads. I ended up with $5,500 in a set of heads that I could have (and should have) bought direct from Mike for $3,800.
This is what you can get from trying to help out some on the board vs going straight to a reputable company.
I will never know if the 4l80e trans originally had the good parts in it or not as now that George dropped out soon after my deal with him. It may have had some of the the parts and he just rebilled me for them or it may have been junk. He did give me a note when I recieved the trans back from him. It stated that I had the best new style drum and best built trans that he had ever done. He also stated that he didn't want anyone to open the trans and if something went wrong I should only send it back to him. I wonder why??
The kicker to this is I generously gave money on different occaisions for his son's situation.
John
