100 Front Hub Spacer/Distance Piece

When I took off the front hub of by BN2 to restore the bearings, I noticed that they did not have the distance piece and shims that show in the manual and Moss diagrams. I initially assumed that they had been removed previously and had to go AH Spares to find replacements. However, I just helped a friend remove the hubs from his BN2 (manufactured in Nov 1955 - 6 months before mine) and his did not have distance pieces either. His car seems to be very original. Does anyone know if not having the distance pieces was at one time standard on 100's? The Moss catalogue lists the pieces for BN1's and BN2's but they are N/A.

My BN2 and BJ8 had the pieces, and I believe they're shown in the corresponding shop manuals. My guess is American mechanics just figured they weren't necessary--along with all the fiddlin' and measurin' required to get the shim pack right--and chucked them in the garbage bin. To be fair, parts availability was way worse back in the late 20th century than it is now; some of the local clubs were formed as much to find/trade/sell parts as for social reasons, and locating proper size shims may have been a hassle.

My BN2 did not have the distance pieces when I bought it in pieces but I've put them in fwiw.