Transaxle

A transaxle comprising:

• a housing, a first shaft and an intermediate shaft parallel thereto journalled in said housing, a plurality of sets of meshing gears on said shafts for establishing a plurality of reversing drives at respective ratios between said shafts, a nonreversing drive connecting said shafts, clutch means shiftable to make any one only of said drives effective, a differential in said housing having an input gear member, an intermediate gear rotatable on said first shaft meshing with said input gear member and drivingly connected to a second intermediate gear rotatable on said first shaft, and an output gear nonrotatable on said intermediate shaft meshing with said second intermediate gear, said differential comprising a pair of coaxial output members rotatable on an axis parallel to said shafts, the sets of machine gears on the shafts including first gears nonrotatable on said first shaft and second gears rotatable on said intermediate shaft, said clutch means being slidably supported on said intermediate shaft, said nonreversing drive comprising a first sprocket nonrotatable on the first shaft, a second sprocket rotatable on said intermediate shaft, and a chain entrained about the sprockets, said second sprocket being on the opposite axial side of said clutch means from said second gears, and being engageable by the clutch means only when the clutch means is fully disengaged from said second gears.