man I'm waaay too dumb/stubborn to throw in the towel on stuff. Downside is the wife bitches that I should have got a "real" plumber, a "real" electrician, and etc... haha
Got the books out now, doing the homework.
Morning after edit: the list of little piddly OEM stuff is waaaay bigger than I thought it would be. Knew I'd trash lots of gaskets from the PCV valve / oil ingestion failure, and quite a few more doing the oil pump R/R, but anyhow it's whatever, the job will get done. Still working on it, will post it tonight for your guy's review's & critiques & such.