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Ah yes, thanks Reynard.

Silly transcription error.

Caphrist, I haven't solved the word between "for" and "step" but surely the third letter is L from LA for Louisiana?

Barretter, Louisiana is a red herring. You need an American word for guitar and a synonym for man, both reversed. The last letter of the guitar is the extra letter.
My problem is finding meaning in the complete message.

This may be giving too much information so skip if desired. The message from the extra letters is telling you to use the digits you have in your converted grid to tell you which letter of each of the first 52 clues to read. You can't read letter zero, so, where you now have a zero in your grid (fourth letter of the top row, so fourth clue, for example) you are being told to 'READ ZERO AS TEN - so, for example, you are taking the tenth letter of the fourth clue, which is O. This all gives a new instruction, which is brilliant.

Thank you Escuan. Yes that is brilliant

A very clever puzzle and I am almost there. However (there is always a "however"!) I have the last two digits of Row 9 as 00 when I believe that it should be 99. Have I gone wrong somewhere? Any hints would be greatly appreciated.

Read the preamble again, very, very carefully.

reynard to dispel any lingering doubts you still might have, you only need to be MOWNZAF AIKUBLYP ....

my cryptic hint was of course intended for thepost, not reynard, who needs no nudge. Sorry about that reynard ! !