Missing cog?

[Thomas]

According to your description seems like physics glitch.

If the has written over all old saves, then there is not much left to do except:
- Restarting.
- Asking for save game
- Hacking a save game.

If you wanna hack the save game, open it in a text editor. search for
WheelOK
and below it you should find a (assuming the two other cogs are on spokes)
val="2"
changes this to
val="3"
save file and load save game.

This should work, I cannot guarantee.