Hi grumpy,
Yeah I was disappointed with the photo of the bent chassis also. I didn't realise till I loaded the photos on the computer and I had had already cut it up by then. I should have preassembled it but I was fairly confident that I only had to get the location front to rear right before welding the chassis as the height I could continue to manipulate till the strengtheners were in place.
Before assembling the clutch shaft I had no idea about the clutch clearance adjustment on these drives. Luckily I spend some time searching on here just prior to assembly and picked up on a conversation between yourself and aldot in relation to the shims on the clutch shaft. I ended up with a single thick shim in each side (be about 30thou I think) and when assembled it just drags on the corks and when dummy assembled in the mower the pedal travel seems minimal.
I will take more photos on assembly of the differential, the diff does have a lock but it is not internal, it actually uses the wheel hub to lock the differential which is kind of clever in that it places zero load on the differentials internal parts when locked .... a little fiddly to engage/disengage.
