@ibivibiv Ok I was correct! I think maybe there is a more clever way to update the grub directory contents (grub update command etc.) but basically if I do the following I find myself with a fairly close to working system:

dd the MBR file to /dev/sda sfdisk the partitions to /dev/sda partclone restore d1p1.img to /dev/sda1 Take the grub contents from the original machine and overwrite them onto sda1 partclone restore d1p6.img to /dev/sda6 mkswap to /dev/sda5 with the uuid from the orig uuid file

This drops me into the grub menu and after the timeout it boots as normal.

Not too bad, and hopefully it helps anybody else that asks this question. I saw it gets brought up sometimes.