Ha! That's about the size of it. I thought I had typed it all out, but the teardown and reassembly was fairly uneventful. It did take some time since I had never done it before and used the Camo method to get the axles out. I totally disassembled, cleaned and regreased everything. I put one of the birfield stars in backwards and had to disassemble it again. The second time the circlip didn't survive the process, so I had to wait to get another from the dealership (that was the biggest disappointment in the process, $20 for 3 circlips). Oh yeah, and I lost the splined key for my security lug nuts (pretty sure I left it on after the axle pull and slung it off on the way to work), so I had to hillbilly a way around that with some pieces of wire, nails, and an impact socket.
I am still cleaning up moly and bearing grease in my garage weeks later, but I wouldn't be afraid to do it again. I ended up cleaning and repacking all of the wheel and trunion bearings. I was concerned about tearing something up getting the old races out, and all of the original stuff seemed in good working order.
While I was in there I considered upgrading to late model brakes, but for that I need R16 or larger wheels, and to upgrade the master cylinder, etc etc.
So it's been several weeks and everything is still working as good or better than before all of this mess. Even did a shakedown run up near Blowing Rock. I have yet to resolve the elocker control issue, but I can live without that for a bit.
Zuk did an awesome job on this thing and didn't let me cheap out like I was thinking about on the busted carrier assembly. I highly recommend him if you find yourself in need. You could try to DIY it, but the time and cost of getting the right tools and the potential to wreck your toothy bits makes his services very reasonable.
Cheers and thanks for all if the help folks!
Oh, and I did find the missing teeth and that one wayward bolt head!