The transmission, wheel selection and over all layout look great but no way those sideplates will hold up and I can;t really tell but it doesn’t look like sheet metal. Look into keeping the weight reduction to truss patterns
Oops, I thought this image failed to post, so I started a thread here. http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=85872 hopefully we can concentrate the discussion there as I have several other views posted.
however i will respond to the previous post here for clarity. It is 1/2 aluminum, backed with 30x30 flexmation, it is strong enough, I have experience with this style of fabrication. Basically the flexmation take most of the stress side to side and the aluminum is quite thick vertically at all of the critical, weight bearing points (ie. at the wheels) of the aluminum plate itself.
If you upload something to CD-Media, it has to be approved by the moderators. This can take a few hours to a day or two. That’s probably why it appeared to fail to post.