Source for nuts/bolts to attach drive shaft to differential in '84 Spider?

["Brent Bottles" <bbottles@xxxxxxxx>]

Hello. The flex joint in my 1984 Spider failed recently, so I went to
replace it. I now know that the drive shaft does not need to be detached
from the differential to do this (dropping the support bearing gives it
enough freedom to pull out from the transmission). However, I didn't
know this when I started, so I removed the entire drive shaft.

The problem that I now face is that the bolts back there were on so
tightly that I ended up rounding off the heads of a couple of them
trying to remove them. No problem, I thought, bolts are simple to
replace. So I just cut them off, thinking that I'd be able to buy new
bolts with ease.

Wrong.

It turns out that these are M9 (9mm shaft diameter) bolts. I cannot find
these anywhere: even specialty bolt stores here in Seattle go from M8 to
M10. I called the local Alfa Romeo authorized dealer (Ferrari of
Seattle), but they don't have them either. The person I talked to is
going to call the Alfa Romeo warehouse in Florida tomorrow when they
open. But it sure seems wrong to have to special order something as
simple as a few nuts and bolts from across the country.

I want to avoid doing something like drilling the flange out to fit M10
bolts, though I suppose that's an option. As they transmit the torque, I
want to avoid using undersized M8 bolts. Has anybody else run across
this before? Does anybody know where I can get such nuts and bolts? Like
maybe another car that uses this size? (The man behind the counter at
one of the local bolt stores here suggested maybe a Volkswagen dealer,
as he thinks VW uses that size for some things. I haven't called one
yet, but might soon.)
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