Well the cover is back on, and the tranny is recovering in post op.
I should be able to visit the tranny in half an hour when everything cools down.
The cover went back on with a good amount of heat.....sizzled spit seems to be the go. The cover made contact with the gasket all the way round and wasn't sitting half an inch too high. So far so god.
Shafts spin reasonably easy.
Regards using solder, the shim sizes I needed relieved a lot of concern about the cover being bowed if using 1mm solder.
.95, .876 and .935mm
Out of interest prior to installing shims, I stacked all of the original shims and measured them @ 1.95mm
The total of my new shim calculations amounted to 2.76mm
I did read somewhere (ADV?) that differences in thickness between a stock 5th gear and the taller 5th gear caused problems when the shims were not remeasured after installing lower first and taller 5th.
Did I get it all correct? Guess I'll find out.