Interesting Brian, I may have found an easier way though...
Here we go, got bored and decided to find a decent plastic mod 1 spur to use. Found this in the tray of oddball spurs that I have laying around:
47t mod1 spur
So I cut the inside out of the plastic gear until it fit over the diff cup. Then took the stock steel spur and ground off the teeth and the smoothed the cup side so that it was flat.
Then I tried to drill the steel spur for holes to mount the plastic spur. That did not work, as the steel spur is super hard. I even tried to aneal the spur to soften it up, that did not work either. I ended up cutting slots with a fiber disk to place the screws. I clearanced the screw side for the countersunk screws and used nuts to hold the plastic spur on. Not pretty, but it works. I plan to clean it up with the dremel and dust it with some paint.
Side pic makes the spur look crooked, but it is not. I plan to have my machinist turn the centers out of a few more of these spurs, as mine is slightly not right, a little bit of wobble side to side, but it runs true front to back.
I then made some thin spacers to raise the bulks off the chassis, as the new gear placement does not fit in the chassis cutout. I like the further forward spur gear, as it gives more rooom to get the pinion on properly.
And a shot of it mocked up with the motor in the crt.5.