We had one of those some years back. It developed a noisy gearbox. Asking around I was assured it was all fixable - but the box and engine had to come out as there was no room to detatch the box in place.....Which your experience bears out. we found a mug, sorry, buyer and waved it goodbye.
Amusingly, it had mudflaps which the slightest cornering effort grounded noisily. I raised them in steps until hard effort couldn't ground them - about 3 inches.
The PO must have been either deaf or very slow.
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