well I got going on the tranny work this weekend, decided that I'd take the plunge and crack open the case and see if I couldn't figure it out.
Once I started tearing it apart and I saw the basics of how it went together, it was really easy. I removed the shift mechanism, and had to pull all the guts out to flip the ring gear, they all came out as one piece so that was that, pulled the differential out and slid the guts back in, slipped the differential back in bolted the side plate back on and that was that part of it.
while it was apart I did a visual inspection of all the gears and bearings, out of everything there was one bad gear and one bearing needing replacing. but they were both in the tail end of the tranny so they were easily removed, now its just a matter of finding replacements, I have a line on the bearing but need to find a replacement for the gear, hopefully Ican find it at a gear shop locallyt, but its more likely that it'll be difficult to find.
well thats the saga to this point, pulling the tranny apart was a weekend well spent. I'm confident enough now that I'm considering pulling the tranny from my wifes golf and see if I cant fix it myself.
VB