Thanks for the quick response. i figured out the prob just as soon as i clicked “post”
Basically, there were only 2 audio tracks at the in/out points i had set. lol
the video track had 2 takes in it, but i was only merging the audio from the first take. so, naturally, 1/2 of the clip only had 2 audio tracks.
Although, I discovered something interesting in the process. FCP 5.1.4 will not allow me to merge another 2 tracks onto a track that was created by merging.