I'm not sure he was crapping on you after reading his post again and yours. Good advice either way. I might have a difficult time finding a local guy and would have to default to someone else's experiences with the "local guy." Guess you are lucky to have a really good one available to you.
I looked and it I did not see a rebuild kit for the power steering gear box, but there is one for the manual box.
Hope there are no hard feelings. It's just information and we all choose ourselves what to do with it.
STAGE III final answer :cheers: Boxing up a spare gear box
tomorrow.