An Explaination

[copycat]

So far I have seen a couple of threads directed at me, which is fine. What I find odd is that instead of simply replying to the post the responses have been via a new thread, which so far have been added to the deleted post forum before I even got a chance to notice them.

It is obvious that I am not big supporter of Trail Gear and have asked some very pointed questions (specifically with springs and now the 6 stud knuckles) looking for some specific answers. I'm sure that Chris, Matt and the other TG staff on the board know my position and have not banned me for a couple of reasons:

(1) I have been respectful to them personally in the open forum.

(2) I have answered questions for prospective customers that potentially have lead to sales. I have chosen to not take the approach of "bashing" TG products simply because they are sold by Trail Gear.

Feel free to direct problems with to me via PM.

[camcruiser13]

cool:rolleyes:

[camcruiser13]

is their some bad blood between marlin and trail gear?
did someone rip off product designs fomr the other?

i see alot of people on either side of the fence, whats it al about?


forgive the noobyness of the questions

[copycat]

is their some bad blood between marlin and trail gear?
did someone rip off product designs fomr the other?

i see alot of people on either side of the fence, whats it al about?


forgive the noobyness of the questions

Not touching that with a ten foot pole.

[tj40ounce]

why only through pm's? You don't seam to have a problem voicing your opinions in an "open" forum....

[tj40ounce]

just saw tanman's thread about you. That is some funny chit right there... And for the record, my issue isn't you specifically, it's all the TG haters out there that don't know when get over it. You seem to be negative in a lot of threads on this board........... I've obviously not the only person to notice.

[supazuk]

is this guy still talking?

[kamyota]

whats the point of even being signed on this forum then if you dont wanna support TG, you must have eaten paint chips when you were younger

[RustyToy]

mmmmm paint chips ... I hope a few more companies like TG and MC come out then we can have even more products. Hey TG move up to northern cali.

[camcruiser13]

everyones bitter here!

[Loki]

They are close enough RustyToy...unless they want to open up shop near Fairfield, then i'd be down there all the time picking up parts :)

I don't mind honest questions, but if you're honestly just here to stir the pot, what's the point? A lot of people know the past between MCI and TG...it's honestly none of our business, but I simply asked one person a question due to my newby confusion and was answered without someone telling me to mind my own business. i don't have anything against either company.

I say if you like the product and the customer service of a company, go with them. If the other company treats you better go with them. If one company puts a "high demand" product first, then buy it...seems simple to me especially when a company will certainly back their products such as TG has.

Either way, i'm not trying to call anyone out here.

[copycat]

“why only through pm's? You don't seam to have a problem voicing your opinions in an "open" forum....” – tj40ounce

I understand that my opinions are not entirely based on fact because I don’t know everything that has happened. I don’t see a problem with asking direct questions to gain more information on the Trail Gear forum but bashing particular people is a bit out of line.

“whats the point of even being signed on this forum then if you dont wanna support TG, you must have eaten paint chips when you were younger” – kamyota

To be honest I enjoy discussing this type of stuff at lunch and the MC forum isn’t available at work. Somehow the firewall hasn't figured out the TG forum.

Another reason is that I know that the Marlin Board is extremely biased toward Marlin and against Chris Geiger so this give me an opportunity to better form my own opinion.

“I don't mind honest questions, but if you're honestly just here to stir the pot, what's the point? A lot of people know the past between MCI and TG...it's honestly none of our business, but I simply asked one person a question due to my newby confusion and was answered without someone telling me to mind my own business. i don't have anything against either company.” – Loki

My goal isn’t to “stir the pot” but I get interested when my questions are either ignored or answered in such a way as to create a diversion. For example, I have asked multiple times what they are inspecting for when they test and inspect each leaf spring sold. It seems that the only thing that can be tested with a single cycle to flat is the spring rate which is only one aspect of spring quality.

For the record, my personal opinion of Chris Geiger dates back to when he was working at Marlin Crawler. There is enough information available to read between the lines and on some issues there seems to be some common links.

I have ordered several sets of springs from Alcan Spring and from their comments, which were NOT specific or directed at any individual, they feel that the All Pro, Marlin Crawler and Trail Gear springs are all a design of theirs. If you look at the specs for the springs they appear to be nearly identical other than a few minor changes. Chris Geiger stated on the Spring Comparison thread, that has been deleted, that the All Pro springs were “based” on an Alcan design. It is my speculation that Alcan was sourced to design the original All Pro springs and when All Pro got the design they wanted they had another spring manufacture copy the design. Ironically, I don’t think that Marlin Crawler started selling springs until Geiger arrived and now Trail Gear is selling a nearly identical spring. As I have said before, I don’t care for the Marlin springs and the minor changes in the Trail Gear springs appear to be an improvement, but I suspect all the designs have roots at Alcan.

You add in 4.70 gears, dual case adapters, the Marlin Di Pro deal that went bad (and the Di Pro Trail Gear family connection) and now the 6 stud knuckles I don’t think it is unreasonable to wonder if some shady dealing is going on. I’m not positive, but I think more than one of the Trail Gear employees are former employees of Marlin Crawler.

Here is an interesting link from a 3rd party in the Toyota industry:

http://marksoffroad.tripod.com/ChrisGeiger.html

Everyone has to form their own opinion of the situation and go from there.

[Loki]

interesting read...however, not taking anyone's side but competition and options are good for consumers if you ask me

[tj40ounce]

“why only through pm's? You don't seam to have a problem voicing your opinions in an "open" forum....” – tj40ounce

I understand that my opinions are not entirely based on fact because I don’t know everything that has happened. I don’t see a problem with asking direct questions to gain more information on the Trail Gear forum but bashing particular people is a bit out of line.

“whats the point of even being signed on this forum then if you dont wanna support TG, you must have eaten paint chips when you were younger” – kamyota

To be honest I enjoy discussing this type of stuff at lunch and the MC forum isn’t available at work. Somehow the firewall hasn't figured out the TG forum.

Another reason is that I know that the Marlin Board is extremely biased toward Marlin and against Chris Geiger so this give me an opportunity to better form my own opinion.

“I don't mind honest questions, but if you're honestly just here to stir the pot, what's the point? A lot of people know the past between MCI and TG...it's honestly none of our business, but I simply asked one person a question due to my newby confusion and was answered without someone telling me to mind my own business. i don't have anything against either company.” – Loki

My goal isn’t to “stir the pot” but I get interested when my questions are either ignored or answered in such a way as to create a diversion. For example, I have asked multiple times what they are inspecting for when they test and inspect each leaf spring sold. It seems that the only thing that can be tested with a single cycle to flat is the spring rate which is only one aspect of spring quality.

For the record, my personal opinion of Chris Geiger dates back to when he was working at Marlin Crawler. There is enough information available to read between the lines and on some issues there seems to be some common links.

I have ordered several sets of springs from Alcan Spring and from their comments, which were NOT specific or directed at any individual, they feel that the All Pro, Marlin Crawler and Trail Gear springs are all a design of theirs. If you look at the specs for the springs they appear to be nearly identical other than a few minor changes. Chris Geiger stated on the Spring Comparison thread, that has been deleted, that the All Pro springs were “based” on an Alcan design. It is my speculation that Alcan was sourced to design the original All Pro springs and when All Pro got the design they wanted they had another spring manufacture copy the design. Ironically, I don’t think that Marlin Crawler started selling springs until Geiger arrived and now Trail Gear is selling a nearly identical spring. As I have said before, I don’t care for the Marlin springs and the minor changes in the Trail Gear springs appear to be an improvement, but I suspect all the designs have roots at Alcan.

You add in 4.70 gears, dual case adapters, the Marlin Di Pro deal that went bad (and the Di Pro Trail Gear family connection) and now the 6 stud knuckles I don’t think it is unreasonable to wonder if some shady dealing is going on. I’m not positive, but I think more than one of the Trail Gear employees are former employees of Marlin Crawler.

Here is an interesting link from a 3rd party in the Toyota industry:

http://marksoffroad.tripod.com/ChrisGeiger.html

Everyone has to form their own opinion of the situation and go from there.


I think you enjoy listening to yourself more than anything. You are worried about **** that isn't any of your business. The TG team has come out with stand up products and are giving MC credit where credit is due. Let it be that. Call Chris G if you have questions or get the fawk out. Look what Chris G has done for this sport, regardless of your ASSumptions of what may have happened in the past. Be greatful you can buy six stud knuckles at all.

[kamyota]

couldnt ahve said it better TJ

[supazuk]

is this guy for real? listen loud open them ears of yours.. copycat no one cares just by you name we know you don't like TG ... well you know what don't buy from them and do us the favor and leave

[RustyToy]

Hey copy can I barrow 5 bucks?

[Ovaworked]

I have held of on comenting on this but FFS man your agenda is obvious.
Stop being a troll and bringing the down the forum.
Just incase you're unfamiliar with the term here's a definition.
(I was gunna hi-light the parts of it that match the way you post on here but it pretty much all does).

What Is A Forum Troll?
The term derives from "trolling", a style of fishing which involves trailing bait through a likely spot hoping for a bite. The troll posts a message, often in response to an honest question, that is intended to upset, disrupt or simply insult the group.

Usually, it will fail, as the troll rarely bothers to match the tone or style of the group, and usually its ignorance shows.

Why do trolls do it?
I believe that most trolls are sad people, living their lonely lives vicariously through those they see as strong and successful.

Disrupting a stable newsgroup gives the illusion of power, just as for a few, stalking a strong person allows them to think they are strong, too.

For trolls, any response is 'recognition'; they are unable to distinguish between irritation and admiration; their ego grows directly in proportion to the response, regardless of the form or content of that response.

Trolls, rather surprisingly, dispute this, claiming that it's a game or joke; this merely confirms the diagnosis; how sad do you have to be to find such mind-numbingly trivial timewasting to be funny?

Remember that trolls are cowards; they'll usually post just enough to get an argument going, then sit back and count the responses (Yes, that's what they do!).


How can troll posts be recognised?
No Imagination - Most are frighteningly obvious; sexist comments on nurses' groups, blasphemy on religious groups .. I kid you not.
Pedantic in the Extreme - Many trolls' preparation is so thorough, that while they waste time, they appear so ludicrous from the start that they elicit sympathetic mail - the danger is that once the group takes sides, the damage is done.
False Identity - Because they are cowards, trolls virtually never write over their own name, and often reveal their trolliness (and lack of imagination) in the chosen ID. As so many folk these days use false ID, this is not a strong indicator on its own!
Crossposting - Any post that is crossposted to several groups should be viewed as suspicious, particularly if unrelated or of opposing perspective. Why would someone do that?
Off-topic posting - Often genuine errors, but, if from an 'outsider' they deserve matter-of-fact response; if genuine, a brief apposite response is simply netiquette; if it's a troll post, you have denied it its reward.
Repetition of a question or statement is either a troll - or a pedant; either way, treatment as a troll is effective.
Missing The Point - Trolls rarely answer a direct question - they cannot, if asked to justify their twaddle - so they develop a fine line in missing the point.
Thick or Sad - Trolls are usually sad, lonely folk, with few social skills; they rarely make what most people would consider intelligent conversation. However, they frequently have an obsession with their IQ and feel the need to tell everyone. This is so frequent, that it is diagnostic! Somewhere on the web there must be an Intelligence Test for Trolls - rigged to always say "above 150"

Who is at risk?
Any newsgroup, bulletin board, forum or chatroom can attract trolls, but they don't have the brains to attack nuclear physicists, and they are drawn to the quick response where sex, religion and race are found; so politics is easy prey.

One troll famously tried to infiltrate a mensa group; the results read like 100 trolls and one regular, it didn't have a chance - but it was stupid enough to persist until removed.


Should You Be Concerned?
Usually, no, though fractured funny bones and occasional waves of nausea have been reported.

When a troll become persistent and personal, you may need to consider the possibility that it has fermented into an Internet Stalker - equally pathetic, if not more so - but sometimes requiring weedkiller. Find Out More

Trolls - if they had brains, they just might be dangerous!

[tj40ounce]

speaking of trolls.. there a lot on the lc forum on pbb...

[Chris Geiger]

I am going to answer a few of these questions. Before I do, I am setting some ground rules. First just because I don't answer a question does not somehow make what is said true or that I am hiding something. Please understand that I can not legally say some things that I would like to and thus can not answer all of the questions that I would like to. We will not have or allow arguing on this forum. I believe forums are good for communicating information but once it gets personal, it will be deleted from our forum. There will be no bashing of anyone or any company anywhere on this site. Posts that contain false, misleading, slanderous or argumentative statements will be removed.

[quote] ....they feel that the All Pro, Marlin Crawler and Trail Gear springs are all a design of theirs. If you look at the specs for the springs they appear to be nearly identical other than a few minor changes. Chris Geiger stated on the Spring Comparison thread, that has been deleted, that the All Pro springs were “based” on an Alcan design. It is my speculation that Alcan was sourced to design the original All Pro springs and when All Pro got the design they wanted they had another spring manufacture copy the design. Ironically, I don’t think that Marlin Crawler started selling springs until Geiger arrived and now Trail Gear is selling a nearly identical spring. As I have said before, I don’t care for the Marlin springs and the minor changes in the Trail Gear springs appear to be an improvement, but I suspect all the designs have roots at Alcan. [quote]

This nearly all true but some of it is a little misleading.

Yes the grandfather of all of these springs were Alcan springs, witch are basically modified copies of Toyota lift springs that are copies of Toyota springs. So in effect you could say that the great, great grandfather of all Toyota aftermarket springs are Toyota springs.

Could any aftermarket spring manufacture make a spring without looking at and understanding the original Toyota spring that is under the truck? No. So every aftermarket spring is at least partially a copy of the Toyota spring. Is that bad? I don't think so, and I doubt Toyota cares how many aftermarket springs all of us vendors make. I bet Nisson is envious of the aftermarket following that Toyota receives.

I worked part time with Jon Bundrant at All Pro for 9 months before I moved from Santa Barbara to Hemet to work for him full time. During this 9 months, I worked a full time at UCSB's Instructional Computing, http://www.ic.ucsb.edu/.

At this point I was driving my white 4Runner. I had installed a used single 4.7 Marlin T-Case. The very first time out with the new gears I snapped a frot IFS 1/2 shaft. This was my second shaft failure. I knew that to go further with the truck, a solid axle was going to be needed.

In addition to helping AP with marketing, I was also helping Marlin Crawler with web work, technical articles and a primitive catalog. I did this work in exchange for front axle parts for the swap.

Rocky Mountian Offroad was the big name in Toyota Solid Axle swaps at the time and they charged aprox $3300 for a swap. This included installing a push pull steering box on the frame and using the stock "banana" arm steering system. They were able to get enough travel out of these systems to cause the failure of a number of these steering arms.

The solution to this problem was crossover steering. My 4Runner was the answer as to how to get it out to the public. At this time I would take a guess that there were less then 50 SAS's trucks in the whole country. There were a few photos of work and one or two web sites that showed most of the steps involved. I remember Jack Alford had one and this was the first time I had seen crossover steering. I knew that was the way to solve the banana arm problem. Most swaps at this time took weeks or months to install.

Jon had just released his “Low Steer” Crossover steering (the Hy-Steer tm was just a twinkle in his eye at that point). All Pro used my truck as a basis for one of there first outside SAS swap projects. The whole project was carefully planned out so that it would only take 3 days to do the swap. This would be screaming fast way back before the time of SAS kits. Everything had to be made by hand, even the welded low steer crossover steering arm.

I brought in my computer and camera and took photos during the buildup and posted up photos and did a play by play of the action as it happened. I also created an article on ORC. The springs used on my conversion were Alcan springs. There were a 5 leaf design with all the leaves being 5mm thick. We had no idea how these would work and Jon offered to change the springs after I figured out how they did. The ride home was very scary as the springs were extremely soft. I could barley control the truck at 55 MPH going home. Upon arriving home I talked to Jon and he ordered up a set of springs that had 6 leaves, each 6 mm thick. After these were installed the truck was very drivable. There were some issues with leaning to one side and the spring pins were not in the same place on the left and right springs.

All Pro started receiving many calls and people started lining up for SAS conversions.
As business picked up people were ordering the parts to do the SAS swap at home. Alcan was making springs just one set at a time and Jon was basically selling them at cost, just so his customers had springs that would work with his suspension parts. Jon started ordering the springs in larger quantities, like 5-10 sets at a time. The springs would come in and they were very different from pack to pack. Many customers complained of trucks that leaned to one side or the other. Jon never noticed this when the springs came in one set at a time. When you see all the springs lined up on the floor next to each other, you can see the height difference from spring to spring and set to set.

Finely Jon had serious talk with Alcan. Jon needed springs that were identical from one set to the next, he needed them delivered faster and he needed to make at least some mark up on them as he was loosing his shirt every time a customer had a problem with a set. It would cost Jon around $200 a pair to have bad spring shipped back to Alcan for warranty adjustments. During this time the customer could be without springs for several weeks. The bottom line is that All Pro needed a spring company that could make them better, faster and cheaper. Alcan did not seem to understand where this was going and at that time was not willing to change what they were doing for Jon.
Jon liked Alcan springs better then any other aftermarket spring. John looked at other off the shelf springs before finely deciding to talk to a major spring company in Canada. This spring company was able to make an entire pallet of leaf springs all exactly the same. By shipping entire pallets of spring via truck, the shipping costs as well as manufacturing costs were greatly reduced. Using the idea a leaf shim for the left side from Roger Brown, both the left and right leaf springs could be the same. The springs they produced were extremely consistent from spring to spring and spring returns dropped to nearly zero.

While working at All Pro I had a few of my own idea on adjustments that could be made to the springs. When I left and worked for Marlin I used these ideas to make what I felt was a better spring.

The above information is completely true and was written to attempt to give an understanding of what, where and when these springs came in to existence. It is not intended to inflame, enrage or be the cause or start of any verbal or physical conflict. I have made the statements above as accurately as I can recall. Due to a contract currently in effect, I can not discuss the history, of Marlin’s springs.

[copycat]

Sounds fair.

Alcan is very proud of making springs one pack at a time, by hand, so I can see where making large quantities of identical springs would be difficult.

Thanks

[Chris Geiger]

Alcan makes great springs, If I needed custom springs, they would be one of my first choices.