Jeramie...contact Liberty's Gear. They claim the stock reverse gear and blocker do not mate well with our tranny's. IF you put a brand new blocker on a brand new reverse gear it still has some wobble to it. They said you can retrofit the Reverse gear and blocker from a Ranger. So jog their memory with this if they don't know right away what you are talking about. At a minimum you'll get a brand new R gear and best case it'll be an improvement over stock!
One question though....how did you conclude this: "no spiral oiler re-installed on the input shaft. This damaged the rear bearing plate"
As for the rebuild and difficulties of....it's not difficult at all if you know how to approach it. If you are going into it for the first time....it's not going to be fun. Kind of like when you go to change spark plugs in your SC for the first time...you hit all these brick walls, takes forever to figure out the plan of attack, tools to use. But then you KNOW....so the second time it's much easier.
I didn't need a press (what do you use it for?!?), but did need a $8.00, 1.75 inch diameter, 10 inch long section of exhaust tubing which Autozone stocks to help press the mainshaft bearing back on. To get it off, I just use two pry bars with very even force to work the bearing off. Sometimes judicious use of a heat helps get it moving. On my last rebuild, the biggest PITA was getting that crush nut off the mainshaft. OMG this thing must have had 300ft-lbs of force on it. If you buy ANY specialty tool, I would suggest buying the LONG socket that fits this nut. If you can't afford the real tool, you can just buy a big socket, cut it in half and have a machine shop weld it back together with a long section of pipe in the middle.
Remember, keep stuff in order when you remove it. It's like a big puzzle. If you put it back together right....it goes smoothly. If you hit a brick wall somewhere, then you've done something wrong and need to go back and look it over.