Rolls forward in neutral, locks up rolling backwards??

You are so right; I see it all the time, guys jump in and tear everything apart; try to do a super duper bang up job , then run out of patience near the end. There are several threads on here that I've followed and it ends up with the op having problems then just never posting any updates. And I saw it coming every time. There's a snap ring behind the forward clutch drum (on the front of the output shaft) that will hold everything in, so you don't have to worry about gears etc falling out after you take that drum out.