Triumph Repair: Locked rear end on 76 Spitfire, spitfire 1500, wheel bearings

Question
I have been looking at a 76 Spitfire 1500 that is for sale at a really good price. The seller tells me that they have been driving the car daily up until a short time ago when something in the rear end "let go" This is all they could tell me. They said it can not be driven as the rear wheels lock up. Any thoughts on this as to what the most obvious cause may be? It is a great looking little car and if the repairs aren't stupidly expensive I would love to but it. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Answer
Hi Ray,

If the rear end is truly locked up you can not make a determination of what did it until you remove it and open it up. Only then can you tell if the differential can just be rebuilt or it is something that makes it too expensive to repair and that would make it necessary to find another one.

The spitfire axle bearings (wheel bearings) were a poor design, running roller bearings on the axle itself but that is unlikely the cause as it would require both to lock up at the same time to make it seem to be the differential. This is easy to determine by just jacking up the rear end and check for free play when trying to rotate each wheel.

I have seen many old British cars brought to me that had been stored for many years and what seemed to have a locked up rear end. When I jacked up the rear and found that both rear wheels had no free play at all and were stuck solid. It turned out to be the car was parked for years with the hand brake on and the shoes were bonded to the drums. So I had to jack up the rear end of any suspected locked up rear end of any car and check for a little free play in the rotation of each rear wheel especially if it had been in storage.

Howard