I guess I covered most of it in the title. Basically, there are some plastic gears in the TG16 CD units that didn't age gracefully, so they inevitably get brittle and break in most (probably all) of the units. Last time I asked about this, the solution was basically just, "Unless you're willing to build some replacement gears yourself, you're out of luck. They're not sourceable."
Did anyone ever find a solution?