Thanks XoC, I did post in drivetrain looking for technical help and I did post here looking for local recommendations. I won't go to Maxwell Nissan... actually, I don't generally trust dealerships to work on my vehicles.
I also posted a third thread somewhere else asking about clutches (after doing a search and reading old posts).
And no, I didn't delete any posts.
superjens: thanks for the warm response
you really know how to cheer up someone with a brok ass truck ...