ok, so heres what i come up with
i started out by pulling the oil plugs, and they werent too bad
so i cleaned them off, and set them to the side
so i pulled the sump out
and it looked like this
the whole time, im looking for bits of black plastic, i dont see any, but there are aluminum shavings, which had me worried
then i noticed this little bugger in here
so i pulled the filter off, and found 1 little strip of plastic and some more aluminum shavings
so i at that point i decided to pull the filter out the side, and low and behold what do i find???
well that was yesterday, today i popped the top end off, i couldnt get the motor out of the bike so i just wiggled it to where i could work on it (back injury), i get the head off and what do you know
the plastic came off its little sled, and was sitting in the bottom of the motor
but fortunately my rear slider looks alright, so im not going to fool with it
however i will change the head gasket and the slider while im in here, im not really going to mess with much else except for re-lapping the valves, changing the stem seals, and new gaskets and filters.