Well, it's been a long time, too long to be not riding. The Cali is finally back on the road, took her for a wee spin last night at suitably low speeds just in case i had forgotten to tighten something up correctly or whatever. Found an engineer in Kaikohe ( friend of a friend ) who resplined the pinion $300 cash, seems to have done a nice job, the fit to the coupler is moderately tight but eased up once I put the paste on. I replaced the pinion shaft bearings and put it all back together with the same shims as before and seems no different than the way it came apart. I found a paste called GA50 for the spline lube, 50% moly disulfide $48 for a tootpaste sized tube at an engineering supplies shop, did all the shaft splines and the rear wheel hubs and still got 3/4 of the tube left. I'm planning on pulling it apart after about another 5k to check the pinion spline and probably every 15k or so after that. Thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread I learned a lot from all of you.
Cheers,
Mark.