206jock,
Just to compound the problem, around that time some ex militery 206 parts became available which originated in the middle east (Saudi). The MRG in my machine had come from this source but didant have the correct (recent) release to service which I believe is a EASA form 1. The CAA took the view that the gearbox should at the very least have a mid life (1200 hour) inspection, but they would have prefered the full thing due to the incredible old age of the unit, which must have been laid around somewere gathering dust. Just to add fuel to the fire THIS unit had a release from Agusta ??. I believe NigelH made the point that these parts which I believe originated from a dealer down on the south coast (who had them advertised on his website) could well be the very same items he mentioned.
We did try at the time to get people to do the swopping thing, and if you get Helidata you will have seen the add looking for MRB and TRB on ours to swop with Bell owners. The parts pool has dried up, hence why Agusta had no option but to certify the TRB. The machine had to have brand new MRB at a cost of $60k a pair on a 1980 machine ?, because they had no option in the end. Its sad really because I did offer to contribute towards the cost of the blades way back in April 07 but they were adamant that they could get around the problem without going to that exspense.
I did see a similar thread on this forum just before xmas regarding this very problem, but cannot find it anymore, was that you ?