Well BigJIm, TourDeforce, Tony2005 et al,
I can't thank-you enough for your helpful comments and replies in this forum. I ordered the TB gasket and some cleaner spray and lo and behold, exactly as depicted in the photo's on this site the ERG passages were almost totally blocked up.
I cleaned them out carefully, reassembled and presto, NO CEL!!!
Excellent news and again you guys are great. It makes me want to swear that i told the dealership management about this possibility and they said they would put their top shop foreman on the job to do a "FULL diagnosis" and he still came back saying it was the pre-cats .... If I had been away on travel and my wife was dealing with them alone we would probably be at least $2000 worse off at this point ...
It also makes me seriously wonder about a recent slave cylinder failure / clutch replacement job the dealership did, which somehow wrecked the synchro on second gear. Cost $1661 for the original slave / clutch and then another $800 for a trans rebuild (they paid for the removal and replacement the second time). I took in a web based average clutch replacement cost of $750 and they claim the factory trained techs are what I'm paying an extra 100% for ... I was not amused in the least. Then I called a prof transmission shop who claim it is possible to improperly replace a clutch/trans in such a way that will damage the synchro ... BUT the dealership refuted that also and said I had to bend over again .....(The synchro was perfect before the slave collapse) - AND there were ZERO grinding noises when the slave failed and I lost all hydrailic pressure in the clutch system.
SO THANKS again, I didn't have to bend over a third time - THANKS to you!!!
Cheers!
Tony
All too often, the threads just fade off without the original poster posting the eventual solution to the problem. This helps for future searches.