A Tale of 2 Diff's

I spent a week at the in-laws place in Bundaberg recently, where the spare 2500 TC we recently purchased was waiting to be investigated. It turns out to be a fairly 'interesting' car.
Unfortunately it's an auto, and a bit far gone to be worth restoring, but there are some good bits.
A look rummage around in the boot revealed a spare diff., a knackered diff. pinion, plus the starter motor, distributor, a spare pair of driveshafts and the radiator grille from a Mk2 2000 ... The diff. was stamped ME**** so obviously belonged to a 2000. Opening it up revealed that the pinion and crownwheel were quite a mess. A shame as one of the reasons we wanted the car was for a spare diff. (just in case!).

Removing the diff. that was fitted proved it was probably in an even worse state than the first one, however! Two useless diff's ... hurrumph!

The next find was that the engine was also an ME prefix engine, which seemed rather strange given that there's a towbar on the back, twin electric fans, and an oil cooler for the auto-box. Why would someone with a towing car reduce their engine size from 2.5 to 2.0? I attempted to measure the stroke to see what was what, and it appears to actually be a 2.5 unit after all. Attempting to turn it over by hand proved pretty easy too, with nothing apparently seized. It will be interesting to see what's going on inside.

The radiator was still full of bright green coolant, when I removed it, and looks to have been re-cored.

There are lots of useful little odds and sods that have been put on to BOB, too, like a better wiper arm so passengers can see out when it rains, wiper bottle bracket, wiper park switch, glovebox lock, etc.
I've got the electric fan going now as well after diagnosing a bad contact.

BOB's been getting some great runs recently - a lot of dirt roads (we've been out looking for them!), and some good windy 'mountain' roads. Here's a shot on a dirt road on the way back to Brisbane from Bundaberg:



On the next visit I'll hopefully get a chance to drop the engine and gearbox out. The box can hopefully be sold.

Meanwhile back in Blighty, Mum's been selling some of my old Triumph spares on e-bay for me. The only things that haven't shifted yet are a set of very clean GT6 Mk1 carb's and a Mk1 Vitesse rear trunnion set ... contact me if you're interested.