Here's what an exploded view of a NV4500:
I spent about an hour and a half tonight assembling the mainshaft. Most of it went together good until I got to that big ol' snap ring. Here's what I tried first, taping studs to the snap ring so I could open it up wide enough:
Well, that didn't work.
So I thought about it, and thought if I could get something to wedge between the openings, that might work, so a few tools and zip ties led me to this:
That almost worked, but not quite
So then I sacrificed a screwdriver and cut off the handle, zip tied it to the shaft, and tired the snap ring pliers again:
And it worked!!!
I put on a few more pieces and got to where I need to put on the bearing and called it a night.