OK, last night produced no rats to vacuum up. I did get the heads, jugs and pistons removed and I also pulled all the head bolts as they were installed by some moron that new nothing of what he was doing. (Me btw) Amazing what time does to ones knowledge base, plus reading RAMVA.
Anyway, I was looking over the internals of the short block from those wonderful ports holes VW put in the sides. I grabbed one of the rods and wiggled it fore and aft and was surprised by the amount of angle it moved. Not just side to side on the crank, but you could actually move the rod from being perpendicular to the crank. Should I be able to do this noticably or not? I would think that some movement is acceptable but these rods move at least 1/4 inch side to side at the wrist pin end. I suspect that I have more digging to do into the short block. If I do need to split the case, I feel better about catching it now than at 70mph and that red light and strange clanking noise bringing it to my attention.
End play on the crank is within spec.