Obviously no pictures. The site seemed to be down for me last night (perhaps it was for everyone). Anyway, great news for me. I decided to go out and investigate why it might be seized. It looked like there was some corrosion on the shaft at the upper bearing carrier. I sprayed some PB Blaster, put on a spline adapter, and gave it a crank with a 16" crescent wrench. Surprisingly, with just a few pounds of pressure it broke free and started to spin freely. No binding or grinding.
I then pulled the bearing carrier and noticed that the seals were beyond shot. As I had seen on the top side, they clearly had corroded to the shaft. I pulled them and checked the needle bearings. They appeared fine, other than a little corrosion sludge. I shot them out with some PB and some lubricant. Didn't notice any pitting or binding. I greased them back up and they were good to go. I also pulled the shims and thrust washer. Same corrosion sludge, but still in good shape after cleaning. The thrust washer only had trace amounts of the rusty looking grease so I don't think it seeped down too far. I wet-sanded the corrosion on the shaft with some 800 grit paper and there was no pitting, groves, or gouges, so that is good. The thrust bearing surprisingly looked great. I gave it some grease and put it all back. I'll pick up some new seals this afternoon and my water pump kit should arrive in the mail today.
Moving on, I took a look at my shift problem. It, too, looked like it had some corrosion at the top of the housing. Same procedure with the PB. Detached the housing and unscrewed the shift rod. I drained the remaining oil in there and noticed a magnet inside of a spherical spring (it's not in any parts list so someone must have added it at some point). The magnet had a little oil buildup and some metal on it, but it wasn't much and no large flakes. It was all like fine sand/shavings and research shows that this is normal. I pulled the o-ring and cleaned up the shaft. I then put on a new o-ring, re-installed, and was able to shift both forward and reverse. No binding or grinding here either.
As for why I think this happened, I suspect that there were a couple of factors:
1 - The upper seals were toast. Probably had water in the oil, though it was shipped without oil so I can't know for certain
2 - No grommet on the shift rod. This also probably introduced water
3 - The unit had sit outside for a few months before I bought it, thus adding to the corrosion/water intrusion from the outside
Long story short, what I think happened is water intrusion had corroded the seals, rending the shafts "stuck". A look inside the internals as far as I could see didn't show any signs of water damage so it does not appear to be an issue past the first layer. I will know for sure when I install and test the LU tonight or tomorrow.
