Finally getting around to this issue. Decided to take the chance on the Britpart shaft. Ordered one from Lucky8.

 

Do let us know if it turns out to be a GKN as ArmyRover found.

 

Will do. I am pretty sure the one they send will be. After A LOT of research I have found that the GKN shaft has some unique aspects that make it easy to identify. And that Britpart does not make two shafts but that some unscrupulous sellers may sub a lesser shaft under the Britpart name - sorta one of those things that happens on eBay. The one I bought form Lucky8 is linked below. If you look you will see two things unique to GKN built rear shafts which were OEM. First the very thin welds around the shaft itself. Other shafts all have welds of a thickness that is much greater and looks more like a typical weld. Second the u-joint is pressed in and held in place without the use of c-clips. All other shafts have c-clips. While c-clips are nice for service I found that its generally easier to just replace the entire shaft. If the u-joint goes bad then odds are the center bearing and CV joint are not far behind. And replacing the center bearing is not exactly easy - doable, yes, but not worth the trouble.

Also the Amazon shaft from Lucky8 was $38 cheaper than on their own site for some reason.

Lucky8 eBay:
Britpart, same shaft I bought: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Land-Rover-...7/112081613577

Also you can see the Britpart label on the shaft.

 

Well yet again I am disappointed in Lucky8. As you can see in the screen grabs I was sold a Britpart shaft. And the photos match that of Britpart down to a Britpart label in the pics. Yet... I was sent a cheap-*** AllMakes4x4 brand. Opened the box and see c-clips on the u-joint. Then I find an exterior label confirming its not Britpart but AllMakes. So a shaft I can get for $190 anywhere else I paid $300 for. And the shaft I ordered I did not get... Return intimated via Amazon.

 

So Britpart owns All Makes 4x4 and in this thread I said we had this here in stock https://www.lucky8llc.com/collection...hardy-spicer-1

 

Does not change the fact that I was shipped the wrong part. Period.

 

Timely discussion. The metallic intermittent clunking / clanking / tapping / clicking sound that I reported here this week in a separate discussion is PROBABLY a bad Rear Drive Shaft, and PROBABLY the 'front' connection, the part that connects to the rear of the Transfer Case. This is NOT the traditional 'U-Joint' end, and I believe is therefore not able to be serviced/swapped/repaired?

This is good news / bad news -

- Good news if my noise is not caused by bad Transfer Case or Front Diff or Rear Diff (because, time and $$$)
- Bad news because the Rear Drive Shaft was purchased new, not that long ago - June 2017, with about 30,000 miles driven since then. In other words, disappointing it has not lasted longer. I swapped it out myself, and am 99% confident that I did not mess anything up. Easy swap.

Plan - Tonight I will be removing the current Rear Driveshaft, and will perform a test drive. I am hoping there will be zero 'noise'. In which case, I will probably just pickup a different Drive Shaft.

I will report back.

 

Simon, which rear shaft did you buy? 30,000 miles is nothing - assuming the shaft is indeed the issue.

 

So I'm still a bit confused. Mike, does Lucky8 sell three different version of the rear shaft?

$702 "Genuine" (on the website)
$338 "Hardy Spicer" (on the website, as evidenced mainly by the URL, not the page). This would imply a GKN, OEM-quality shaft.
$295 Britpart/Allmakes4x4 (amazon only?) This one as Dakota found out is a repro-quality shaft.

If this is accurate, the $338 shaft is the clear value at only a few dollars more than the Allmakes. But it's not clear if there is a difference between the products offered at the ~$300 price point.

 

Yes that is correct we sell genuine and the hardy spicer which we reccomend earlier in this thred and the brit part/ all makes 4x4 as a creator alternative