Steve, one of my gears was worn the same way, I ran a weld bead around it and ground it as flat as possible, ran damn near true when installed, no visible wobble...don't know what the weather is like in your neck of the woods, but if you have the tires removed set the housing down on 6x6 blocking, 2 under each axle housing and enough to support front of housing and you can move the machine up and over the housing with the hoe..It seems a lot harder than it actually is..4 bolts either side,disconnect brake lines, remove driveshaft,remove two front support brackets on transaxle, and there's a clamp on the right side hydraulic line that needs to come off so you can get to one of the housing bolts..I know I'm forgetting something but it's not really that hard,really nice to have a helper with another set of eyes outside of machine...One really important tip is to block the front axle so the rest of the machine doesn't pivot when going up and over the transaxle because the stabilizers won' be of any help at this point..I wouldn't recommend trying to move housing by yourself,If you have a neighbor with a tractor with a loader a box of beer will probably get them interested in the job...