Which brings us back to the original topic, the metal on metal grinding from the pedal shaft. The culprit turned out to be the woodruff key on the pedal shaft.
I removed everything off the pedal shaft except that circle piece, making sure that nothing would interfere with the transmission gears. Which it didn't. Sadly, I did miss that the woodruff key could hit the cases if the pedalshaft moved. Total oversight that I should've caught but nothing ruined.
