Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I feel so much better!!
I went down to the marina today armed with some new info. It took a while, it took some patience, it took some dexterity, it took flexibility, it took some Zen , but I did it. I got the mess-up , repaired and the gears, pressure plate, mess corrected and remounted as it should be.
Maybe it took some balancing in the force…just before I went down to the marina. LZ get into a car accident with our neighbour in the parking lot. Maybe that negative, canceled the boat one… 
Ether way I got the tranny gears back in place. I stopped for the day at that point. not wanting to push things further. I have time to come back and do the adjustment. Which should be much much easier, now that know how everything works. Yokata!
