There is a way to view an entire thread at once ... for some reason I can't find it right now ... that would make it easy to search the thread.
Yeah, on the forum page there is links to the pages of the thread next to the thread title, something like 1,2,3...57,58, All.
If you click the all link it will show the entire thread on one page.
Then just use your browsers search facility (usually CTRL+F) to find what your looking for.