Getting started with SDIRA and rental properties

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Hi,

I'm been trying to understand the area of Self Directed IRA / 401ks
for the past few months (albeit in an on and off manner, I've read
several IRS publications on the subject).

I then ran into this Forum today and was overjoyed and decided to read
a few pages of posts before posting my initial questions.

I'm afraid that even after doing the above I feel as if I'm more lost
then when I started. I'll fire off some questions I have thus far --
feel free to chastise me if you feel I'm not done enough of my
homework.

Preamble
^^^^^^^
1. I'm very conservative with Tax matters and try to stay FAR away
from anything that is questionable.

What do I have
^^^^^^^^^^^
1. I have about $100,000k sitting in 401k money from my previous employer
2. I have another $30k sitting in a retirement account -- I'm trying
to find out more about this.

What I was thinking of doing
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
1. I like real-estate, I understand it, as opposed to stocks or other
securities.
2. I have very modest aims that I wish in 20 years to have 5 rental
properties all paid off that generate $5,000 inflation adjusted
dollars per month to retire on. Some of these I plan on building with
after tax money and I'd like to build 1-2 with the money in my 401k
3. So with my 401k money I was thinking of putting it in a SDIRA (I
think that's the right term right?) and buying town homes or single
family properties by putting down say 50% of the money from my 401k
and trying to finance the remaining money via a loan.
so for example:
a. Find a town home that is on the market for say $100k
b. Pay $50k from my SDIRA
c. Get the remainder financed some how
d. Stabilize this property -- build up some additional cash reserve
from the rents
and then repeat for property II
e. Let the rental income pay off the properties over the next 10-20
years and then
when I am 60 years old I can use the rental income from the
properties for income.

Questions
^^^^^^^^
1. Does what I'm trying to do make sense or have I got all this wrong?
2. I saw in some posts that folks say using SDIRA for rental
properties is not really worth it -- is that the case -- it seems to
fit my goals?
3. Can I buy properties with putting a partial payment down and
getting the remainder financed -- if so what type of loans and lending
institutions should I look at?
4. I've seen some heart burn regarding Managing Property bought
through a SDIRA. I tried to wade though the posts but I couldn't
really figure out the boundaries -- so I plan on finding my tenants,
managing the repairs, buying the insurance and depositing the profits
back into the SDIRA. I don't plan on taking any distribution of the
rental income or compensating myself for the hours spent administering
the property -- is this kosher?
5. Let's suppose I've used up all my money to buy a property and there
is an emergency repair on a property and there is no cash left in the
SDIRA. Can I use personal funds to fund the repair? If not what
recourse do I have?
6. A variation of the idea is to buy one property clear. Then take out
loan against it (much like I can take our a loan on my 401k) and then
use that money to buy another property. The rental income from the
property would pay off the loan ... but I think this would run afoul
right?

Apologies for the long post.