Sunday

I put the nose cone back on the tranny and went looking for atf fluid I had laying around to throw in there and completely fill/soak it in hopes of making those stuck bearings a little more likely to break free.

I filled the tranny and got it back in the bug. Sure enough it would now roll with both wheels in the same direction! Of course no Neutral yet, but we can hope... Dunno, I tried throwing it in 4th and rocking the wheels back and forth, but nothing happened yet...

So, with a working brake and rolling wheels I rolled it out of the garage and into the driveway. Then got the 4-wheeler out which I had pretty much blocked in to this point. I hooked it on to the trailer which had the bug's engine on it and brought it down to the garage and took a look at what I had. Umm yeah, me thinks it sitting outside, face down in the mud for years didn't do it a lot of good. I blew off all the pine needles, pine cones, a nest out of the exhaust and who knows what else from around and scraped off the mud and cleared the mud out of places.

Then I added oil to bring it up to at least the low line.

Then I tried to turn it. Umm, it would seem to prefer not.

Took out spark plugs. They looked not super-great either, sprayed some PB Blaster in there as well.

Tried to get the alternator/fan to turn. Unh-uh. Figured out how to get the belt off. Got a big wrench and pipe on it. No sir, it would really rather not turn at all.

I started taking the fan assembly off and I was getting tired and it was getting colder out and I decided it was about time to head in.

Monday...

Found a fan shroud for the bug with a coil and generator mounted.

Tuesday:

Picked up the rear brake hoses.

Trying to determine what I need and where to get it. I put an ad on craigslist looking for that axle nut and I have a response saying if I pull it I can have it. Bit of a drive though. We'll see.