Hey Dave,
Yeah, I found the index marks today. I installed a better light over my workbench. You are right, they are very hard to see.
That would be great if you could talk to your friends at Rohloff. I guess you could have mentioned that prior to me getting into this
Just kidding. I of course enjoyed every minute of it.
And just to wrap this up, I put the silent ring back in and the hub definitely does have less side to side slop. But yeah, from what I could tell, "silent ring", like you said earlier, seems to have more to do with the qualities of the ring than the actual purpose, despite the misleading factory tour video I was referring to.
Speaking of videos, I did a dismantle and reassemble video and am posting it to Youtube right now. I didn't have time to get into the axle itself (15 minute upload limit on Youtube), but figure most will enjoy the videos anyway.
I'll post them to a new thread after they are uploaded.
Thanks for hanging with me on the topic!