Good news from down there then, gearboxes with oil in and boots in good condition to stop water and dirt ingress are generally fine

Yep, I must admit, I was very surprised. I really thought it would look like my steering box. It was also 3-400 kms inland so a bit dryer than on the coast.
 Ill hold judgement until I actually get it running but so far so good.

["DUMB WAYS TO DIE"]

"DUMB WAYS TO DIE"

I am slowly figuring out that working on Volkswagens requires a small amount of ingenuity and thinking outside of the box. I nearly learned this the hard way with the spring plates and a much to close call with stored kinetic energy.


I had no sooner finished congratulating myself on how smart I was when the ratchet strap snapped, sending a spinning propellor of sprung doom my way, narrowly missing my knee then my face.
Not being a quitter and not being willing to
A. spend the money on the correct tool
and
B. waiting for said tool to arrive,
it was off to my local hardware store (Bunnings) for the Aussies out there where I came up with this contraption.





Very crude yet very effective, safer, and cheap at about $8 bucks.

And while I was there I thought "why not buy a new ball joint splitter" as I also put one to many ugga duggas into the rattle gun that morning also just missing my face and risking my rugged good looks. No one said you needed to be smart to build a car. 

With the rear end sorted, it was onto the front Beam assembly and mounting the shocks and Disc Brakes.



The original plan was to go with the Red beam and components but Black looked so much cleaner.



I now know the purpose of the holes in the rear support arms, Thanks Volkswagen - you really thought of everything.

Yep..... There have been a lot of serious injuries when folk have been too close to spring plates when trying to get them off. I was lucky back in 1970 on my first try. Just by chance my body wasn`t in the way of a spring plate that came off it`s stop like a rocket.

It's not just VW springs.
Always wondered why spring compressors are sold in pairs so the spring can ping out when a set of three makes it safer

And the Stoltswagen has an Engine. Now for the tear down and rebuild. It is running so wont be doing a great deal to it, just a freshen up, clean oil, new gasket set and push rod rod tubes. May go for dual port heads down the track but will get registration done first.