Came up with the same query regarding two retaining plates and found the topic on your forum. Could it be the retaining plate had been doubled up as a manufacturers mod to make it stiffer and thus stop leaks through the joint washer when the swivel housings were filled with oil. Did the early defenders had oil filled swivel housings?
western may have fallen in to the trap caused by our digital age by only looking at a page found by a search engine rather than the whole document.
A lot of technical documents on the web (not only Landrover) were written before the age of the internet. They are index based, so to search you use the mk1 eyeball starting with the index from there you are guided along a specific path which takes you to a section and perhaps sub section which may have relevant additional information. A search engine looks for specific words or groups of words within the text of the document. The search results may even show you the index and sub section pages but who wants to look at them when with a single mouse click you can be on the very page you think you need.
The Landrover Parts Book is one such document with the relevant section entitled axles and suspension so the quantities are for one axle not individual assemblies. eg the housing bearings (item 6 on page 415) and all the associated parts are not handed so the parts lists quantities are doubled hence 14 off Bolts, Spring washers and plain washers for holding the retaining plate. The half shaft assembly is handed so quantities for one axe are single.
There is an anomaly to this if you look at page 417 the technical author had a bit of a senior moment. The swivel pin housing is handed so single per axle and all the items attached to the top half of the housing have per axle quantities, but for the bottom half it goes a bit Pete Tong with some quantities for per axle and some per housing.
The moral of the story is don't just rely on the information you are presented instantly with by the internet always try to find another source to cross reference with. Look at section and subsection pages another 10 min reading could save you hours work or better still money.
