I can think of three or four members straight away who will chime in with good advice - actually that number is probably closer to 7 or more.

Some of the members tend to concentrate on or specialise in a certain era (EM, SS, DMD), so you won't usually get all 7 or so commenting on the one repair thread.

The trouble for a dealer putting their two cents in to one thread is that then they might be expected to help out on all repair threads which is probably not feasible. If I want help from someone in the business I expect to pay for their time; although I have found that you can go and ask questions of their techs when visiting showrooms and they are generous with their advice.

If your mate wants someone to fix it he can take it to one of the dealers/repairers in his area; there is no problem with you asking the questions for him if he doesn't feel up to that himself is there?