R45 driveshafts

The car is a 52 plate R45 diesel with original MG ZS 180 shocks and springs which where brand new & fitted about 2 years ago.

My n/s drive shaft just popped out, this has happened before about 18 months, 14,000 miles ago and I replaced the drive shaft with an exchange one and it was ok, (the locking ring thing was missing that time and again this time) although the seal at the gearbox has been leaking despite replacing the seals twice, I thought perhaps the recon shaft was slightly thinner hence the leak.

Anyway a few days ago I replaced both top wishbones with pattern ones but they didn't have the bar thing that links the 2 arms that bolt to the inner wing and those arms were very different as well and would not fit so as I was poly bushing them any way I swapped these for the original ones but comparing the original wishbones themselves to the pattern ones they looked the same apart from, as I said, the arms with the bar that links them together.

Also I read that the MG ZS top wish bones are just the same as the std R45, but they are fitted the other way round to give the correct camber for the ZS suspension , left on the O/S and the right one on the N/S see thread here http://ift.tt/1CzolSd now I decided to try this when I fitted them last week to get the correct camber as I have the ZS shocks and springs, the AA guy managed to get the shaft back in enough to get me home, although by the sound it made it was only just in as it was noisy on slight lock & he advised me to put as little lock on as possible so as not to pop it out again, he mentioned that some models of cars can have slightly different drive shafts.

So are the std R45 drive shafts different to the MG ZS? slightly longer perhaps?

Do you think that I should try new top wishbones with the link bar and correct arms that bolt to the inner wing?

Any thoughts greatly appreciated as its my daily car.

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