What kind of money would we be looking at to get the gearbox rebuilt for our 70 swing axle beetle? It had no reverse when we bought it and from doing a quick search on here sounds like a gearbox rebuild is probably required. I realise the price will vary greatly depending upon problems and who does it but a rough estimate would be great as we are trying to decide weather to buy another box or get ours rebuilt. Thanks for any help anyone can give us.

Not trying to get your hopes up but have you tried playing around with the linakge at all?

I got a free bug many years back i found parked beside a house.
Owner had it towed home after it began grinding badly and lost all gears, she was quoted $2k for a rebuild (about 8 years ago)
After the deal was made as you can imagine she was most unimpressed when i simply fitted a pissy little second hand coupler from my junk pile and jumped in and drove it home to my place

second hand 1500 boxes come up from time to time but unless you find one u can test drive in a car first it can be real hit and miss
the later 1300 boxes work but need a nose cone swap

As Joel says, make sure that it actually is the box, not linkages or shift plate adjustment. If you needed it I've got a very good 1500 box which I could sell you if you live in Adelaide. You can't test drive it now as the car is ruined but it was my daily driver for a year or two and it always shifted nicely.

The whole rear end is out of the car now but when it was fitted the shifter would go into reverse but there was nothing when the clutch was released. Once it was out I put in into revese at the gearbox and when the input shaft is turned you can hear the the internals turning over inside the box but there is no movement at all from the axles. When in a forward gear the axles turn as expected. I dont know a huge amount about these but it sounds as though the gears are not meshing (if thats the correct word for it).