Front Axle Part 2 - Getting Shafted...

As mentioned in my Front Axle Part 1 post, since my donor lower front wishbone pivot shafts had some minor scoring on them, I had decided to replace them with new shafts.

Scoring on existing Lower Wishbone Shaft

I originally ordered replacement shafts / castellated nuts (Part Number JLM11858) from SNG Barratt.  At the time of ordering these parts were on back-order with a 1-2 week delivery period.

Well after 2 weeks and no sign of my replacement shafts, I gave SNG a call.  They were very apologetic and advised that the parts needed to be supplied by the manufacturer and currently they were unable to provide a delivery date.  Since I really needed these shafts to progress with the build of the front end, I decided to cancel the order and look elsewhere.

Browsing through the internet sites of most of the well known Jag parts suppliers, these shafts appeared to be on 1-2 week lead time with them all and so I assumed I would have the same issue as I had experienced with SNG.

A fellow AK builder, Barry Boughton, who had got in touch with me after reading my blog, had mentioned a company called British Parts UK as a good source of parts.  Having checked their website, they did indeed have the parts and were showing them as in stock.  Rather than ordering over the web and then finding out that these were also on back order, I decided to give them a call.  They confirmed that, yes the shafts were in stock and that they could be delivered in 1-2 days, so I placed my order over the phone.  Job done!

Ok - perhaps not.  

3 days later there was no sign of any shaft delivery and even more strangely to my mind, no email confirmation of my order or delivery.  I gave it a couple more days to be sure, but with still no sign, I gave British Parts a call.  Well thankfully they did have a record of my order, but it transpired that although their system was showing the shafts in stock, when they had gone to the bin in the warehouse it was empty.  The shafts were on back order but the manufacturer was currently unable to advise on a delivery date (obviously the same manufacturer that SNG use...).  I'm not sure when British Parts were actually going to inform me of this, but being less than impressed, I cancelled my order with them.

I was running out of options and getting desperate to press on with the front suspension build.  My final resort was eBay.  Now I'm always very dubious about buying certain items on this well known auction website; many things are obviously low quality, fake, dubious origin, dodgy location etc etc and as these shafts are a major component in the front suspension of what will be a very high powered car, I did not want some inferior quality, cheap, reproduction items.

Having entered the part number into the eBay search box, the required items popped up as being available by seller called E-Type Parts.  All the feedback seemed very positive (and I was even more reassured by the fact that E-Type parts actually has their own website and are based in the UK, in Hull).  So taking a deep breath I ordered two shafts and the corresponding castellated nuts (Part No NL609401J).

Two days later I received a parcel containing two lower wishbone shafts and two castellated nuts.  Success!

Unfortunately not quite....

The supplied nuts did not fit onto the threaded ends of the shafts.  However Jonathan from E-Type Parts was very quick to offer a full refund on the nuts (he was surprised as he also thought that the NL609401J nuts, which are a 9/16 thread, were the correct ones for the shafts).  Between us we concluded that the shafts must have a metric thread, which I managed to confirm by checking with an M14 nut that I had in the AK nut and bolt pack. 

So now I needed to track down two M14 castellated nuts (the nuts are secured to the lower shafts with split pins).  Again not so straightforward as metric castellated nuts don't seem to be that common, but eventually I found a company called Westfield Fasteners who had the offending items for sale and an order was placed.

So now I have the new lower wishbone pivot shafts and nuts, I can get on with the front suspension build-up.

The shafts from E-Type Parts are slightly different to the original donor shafts; aside from the M14 thread instead of the 9/16 thread.  They are also very slightly a different length (longer), which might need some additional washers to accommodate, and the shoulder between the shaft and threaded portion is not chamfered, as on the original shaft, which does make it slightly more difficult to fiddle the shaft into place, through the various bushes and washers on the wishbone assembly.

New Lower Wishbone Shaft (top) vs original donor part (bottom)