Halfway through the transmission teardown, I was kicking myself for inducing seemingly unneeded punishment by going through with the teardown.
Several people suggested to just flush it out and run it.
It took a couple of days to machine out a bearing puller, and service information in the manual is sparse and incorrect. (Srange, since service info on the NP 200 is great).
Anyhow, I found this while removing the counter shaft gear
Note, the front spacer ring was reduced to small steel dots.