Indy Guy recently commented on Machinenbau's "Rice Rod" thread that it had made the top 10 popular topics. Upon looking at the list I noticed the "Married??? DO NOT TRY THIS" thread and didn't remember ever reading it. Skimmed it and noticed "NOT A TA" was the author and thought, "He's from Fla, wonder what he's up to" and tried to find his last post. He posted on a lot of long threads so that didn't work. I checked out his member page and found his name and company link.
Google brought me this.
https://www.pro-touring.com/threads/140010-RIP-John-Paige-(NOT-A-TA)
(edit) He passed 12/16/22. HERE is a short obituary. I always loved his builds and really wished he had made it to a Challenge.
RIP NOT A TA.
Oh man. He lived about 20' south of me.
I talked to him a bit off the forum about repairing some metal on a car but we never got together.
RIP John.
STM317
PowerDork
9/11/23 2:12 p.m.
What a bummer! Seems like the man knew how to make lemonade from lemons.
Dammit. That guy was cool.
Sorry to hear this. Guy inspired me to pick up some tools and get to work. I also liked reading his input about moving to Florida. Seems like he really enjoyed living there so I'm glad to see he got to enjoy 11 years there instead of waiting until retirement age to move, which was about the age he passed.
Here's to NOT A TA!
Bummer to hear this news. I always enjoyed his contributions to the community, though I never had the opportunity to meet him in person.
I think I have a couple of his old tools in my shop. High time to get out there and use em.
RIP
Damn, I remember some of his more recent posts mentioning health problems...he posted a lot of good info and was always entertaining. RIP 
That is very sad, and thanks for sharing the news, John. As I remember, he was also into BMX.
That sucks. He was definitely a great part of our little cabal. RIP John.
He born the same year I was.
Crap. We are all getting old.
Tom1200
PowerDork
9/11/23 4:28 p.m.
In reply to David S. Wallens :
I recall that as well.
RIP John.
I really enjoyed his Firebird build and other posts. Such talent and dedication lost......
damn, he was a very clever dude. he lives on in MonZora, as he sent me a factory reject tensioner of some kind that i modified to work as alternator belt tensioner. RIP, NOT A TA.
Slippery said:
David S. Wallens said:
That is very sad, and thanks for sharing the news, John. As I remember, he was also into BMX.
I didn’t realize that he ran UGP frame stickers. That’s as cool as you can get.
I'm really bummed about this. He was a really nice guy. His bike shop was right around the corner from my grandmother's house and I used to drive past it all the time. My sister bought at least one or two bikes from him for my nephew.
We would chat periodically through the messenger and I made a habit of dropping him a note with my location whenever I drove past one of his old shops.
I'm sure that I had met him in the shop a few times, but that was long before the GRM Forum connection ever came about., and never face to face after that.
Very sad about this one.
Really sorry to hear that. John was on a lot of the same forums as me since we both had firebirds. He did great work and made it look easy. He was always helpful and encouraging, even though to him I'm sure my projects seemed like amateur hour. He will be missed.
Mndsm
MegaDork
9/11/23 5:37 p.m.
https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/ctpost/name/john-paige-obituary?id=38470237
Obit I managed to locate. Shame I'll never meet the man, I was hoping to eventually use his f-body knowledge for a project that may or may not even exist.
Damn. I have a TH400 dipstick tube that he called dibs on. I remember messaging him about meeting up sometime. Don't think I got a message back. The shift knob that's going into Suprang came from him. RIP man.
