Reddragon you were right and the tech at MTD was misinformed or just didn't look at his diagram very closely.Pulled the transaxle because there was no slot for the C clip on top to fit into.Called a local parts place that was kind enough to print me out an exploded parts diagram of transaxle.There is a tiny wire clip that goes on the end of shaft and up inside the pinion gear.Must order I am sure it's specialized enough that a hardware search would be fruitless.I build bobbers and racing m/c so I have several lifts.the whole process of pulling transaxle and splitting open took less than an hr.using an air rachet. There are very few parts inside.Digging thru the rancid grease for the wire clip was a less than pleasant task,but will clean up,pack with fresh grease ,reattach pinion, and button up.The problem was caused by the two bolts on the front of the trans that go thru the cross member came out causing trans to tip forward causing misalignment.One of the bosses had a piece broken, and the other hole the threads were stripped ,weld and retap broken piece, and helicoil the stripped threads, and should be up and running.Thanx for your input.This is worthwhile info there are hundreds of thousands of these out there under different names.Cub Cadet,Troybuilt,Yardman.Yardmachines,Dynamark and more.As an aside, I was on hold after 7 attempts to reach someone at MTD ,for over an hour,for bad information.