Hey man, thanks! Yeah, he offered to order parts and help install them for me. I gave him a check and he stopped responding to my phone calls. Luckily I was able to cancel the check. I don't remember the details exactly, because it was quite some time ago, I believe around 2004? I knew that he was good friends with the TB community in Hawaii, so I didn't want to make any mention of it. At that point I pretty much tried to stay clear of everyone on the forums. Which kind of sucked because I was pretty new to the TRs, and there weren't really any mechanics locally that knew how to work on the car either (that I knew of). So I pretty much gave up and sold it.
I'm still living in CA, but when I do move back, I plan on getting another TR, haha.