yeah its fine, i had a brand new williams shaft fitted and the tri lobe bearing was sticking out the top of the diff! bizare!
it is, almost sounds like they gave you a renault 5 one. btw, do you have a source for quality 172 CVs, GKN or whatever. I can't really go to renault for a shaft as I have a Williams shaft with a 172 CV fitted.
these are the figures I found:
lengths are Left - right, in mm
R5 GTT 595 - 690
Clio 16V 605 - 705
Clio Williams 620 - 720
Clio Sport 639 - 734
R19 16V 640 - 740
Twingo I 625 - 750
not sure what was actually measured, but they're from the same listing, so should be OK relative to each other.
I also got this for the bare Williams bar from Giulio Dialti at Bacci Trasmissioni
"The requested important measure, that you are asking for (between the 2 circlip seats), is 480,5 mm and the full lenght of the drive shaft is 512 mm.
The wheel side spline, for the Clio Williams original CV joint, is with 25 teeth and with an external diameter of 27,3 mm."