John, any Toyota wrecker would have had one of those suspension bolts for sale, the same bolts are also used on 100 series LandCruisers. I think you were a bit unlucky and maybe had some idiots giving you some lazy answers.
Parts like bolts are never normally kept in stock by any dealers of any brand of car but parts like that are normally always kept by Toyota at their Melbourne or Sydney warehouses, which you are correct would take a couple of days but would be available. We are often purchasing genuine nuts and bolts from Toyota and the majority of parts are available from Australia. It is quite rare to have to wait for parts from Japan. At most you will have to wait is two weeks but normally it takes much less. They have their own fleet of Container ships and deliver to Australia every week. Never heard of parts coming from Singapore, European brands yes but not with the Japanese.

We find that Toyota still offer a huge range of parts for many older models, it is not very often that we can't buy genuine parts. The other big difference is that with Toyota and Nissan you can in almost all cases buy even the smallest parts from within an assembly as individual parts even on new models. For example I can buy a single thrust washer form inside the rear diff on a new LandCruiser whereas with a Ford Ranger I can only buy a whole differential assembly drum to drum at mega expense.

The low range gearing on the Army Land Rovers is excellent but their high range gearing is shit as they only have a four speed gearbox and rev their heads of at high way speeds which is one of the reasons they are limited to 80 km/h and at that speed you are required to wear hearing protection. The reason they used a four speed gear box in the Army vehicles even though the civilian vehicles already had a five speed box is because the LT77 five speed box that Rover was using at the time was from a 2 liter Triumph car was not considered strong enough, which is correct as it is tiny. The LT95 four speed box used was from the old Leyland delivery vans and is marginally better.
I am working on one at the moment and compared to the Gearbox used in your 80 Series they are a pile of shit. Dumb design and difficult to rebuild compared to the H151 which is in your car, which is the strongest and best designed box ever made as far as used in a 4WD, and a dream to work on. The same box was used in most models of 100 Series and is still used on the current 70 Series. The components are twice the size.

Rebuilding your box is not that expensive, that's if it actually needs a rebuild. Most don't need looking at until about 350000 km's and even then it is normally only second gear syncro. The bearings are massive and even after 500000 they are still in good condition.

Matt.