Been trolling through fixing little issues and discovering more. That metallic rattle sound? That’s the sound of broken up cats rattling in the mid pipe it appears. Shifter fixed, still having intermittent issues with the car popping out of first gear when hot and taking off from a standstill. Resealed the trans plugs, found my AC system now had zero pressure in it, found a torn inner CV boot, cleaned and oiled the air filter.
Now for the fun part, had the car on stands yesterday and by chance decided to wiggle the rear wheels and the right rear wheel had massive massive amounts of play. No loose lugs, no noisy bearing, axle nut was as tight or tighter than spec. We spent a few hours trouble shooting and taking most things apart and retorquing them yet again, ended up with 0.1mm of play on both rear sides. It seems like the wheel bearing race may not have been pressed into the outer cartridge properly (manufacturing defect?). Fun fact the spec on the axle nut torque is lower than the spec on the brake caliper carrier...