Well the GPI seems to have cured itself. The "crunchy" ness has been troubleshot. I checked the transmission and final drive levels.
The final drive is at the bottom of the threads, but using the handy, dandy line on my C wrench I discovered that the transmission is about 5mm too full. They were both changed about 4,000 km ago and still have a light straw appearance. I'm going to give it a good leaving alone.
I did however find that the heat shield on the exhaust pipe has a broken front bracket. Amazingly all of the hex screws came out without any drama. I have decided to run my brick in superleggera form, or whatever the german may be, and left the stupid, rust prone rattly piece off!
Should I grind off the little brackets?
Is the starter bendix a known problem? My crunchiness is intermittent and usually worst on starting.