I'll have to get back to you on the starter variations, but one thing I do know, as it was confirmed by that collector I mentioned, is that that the rubber handle cover and grommet on the height adjustment rod were both green, not black.
Also we can be pretty sure that the housing with no visible retaining nut was still in use up to the 118,000s as it appears on that mower pictured at the start of this thread, and is also apparent from the earliest illustrations - a few more examples would be nice to see. Only a few possibilities to explain the variation that I can think of; either they were fitting the first variant in conjunction with the second variant, which seems unlikely, or the second variant is a much later non-original addition, or there was a changeover some time after #118,746.
