*********UPDATE: June 13th********

After a few phone conversations with Paul Forte @ TurboAction over the past few weeks, he is finally sending out a new valve-body today.

He decided a few weeks ago, before sending a new one out that he needed to completely verify mine was defective, so after not finding an issue with it on the bench, he installed it into their mule car and.... bingo. it did the same thing it did in my car (1st gear locked).

Since he couldn't find anything wrong with it on the bench, we decided that it would be best to check the new one he was going to send out in the same car, which he did and found no issue. bottom line, the valve body I had somehow has a "ghost problem" that Paul cant figure out. He verified that a new one worked fine and it's in the mail.

Why am I bothering to post this non-sense??? I don't know. maybe because its the closest thing I've had to actually driving my car in a number of months now. Jeez this is frustrating.