Well, after spending a pleasant afternoon working on the lathe, I have all three transmission drums re-bushed. Triple gears and driven gear are next.

Now, I remember pulling that driven gear, and it was a bit difficult but DID come off. Today, something possessed me to check the fit of the two keys and both are loose! I miked the keys and they seem to be uniform thickness. The keyways themselves look good....no wallowed out areas, nice straight edges, etc. I can't figure out where the looseness is coming from and what to do about it. Any ideas out there?

It was late last night and I was tired when I posted the above.....the looseness is in the brake drum shaft keyways, not the driven gear. The driven gear keyways are a much better fit.

The only reason I question this is that Mike Bender's excellent video shows him having to tap the keys into place with a small hammer.

George if you have new keys you might try one, It just depends on how loose the old ones are.
You state that the driven gear was a bit difficult to remove, I would suggest putting it all back together and get on down the road.

Thanks Mike...I think I'll do just that instead of fretting about it. I found out that the keys are standard 5/16 (.312) S.A.E. flat bottomed woodruff keys and are available.

Of course, I never thought to check them BEFORE I installed/bored the new bushing. The only fix I could think of would be to have two new keyways machined at 90 degrees to the old ones...which would destroy my new bushing!

George - you might want to run the reamer back through the assembly AFTER pressing the driven gear back onto the brake drum - depending on "press fit" the bushing/s might shrink a bit.

Good thought Steve........I'll do it. Thank you!