What have you done today with your Austin Seven

[Bob Culver]

Shearing split pins seems common practice, esp among "mechanics". But often damages threads. (mechanics have access to common taps and dies). Get away with using soft pins but many are springy and quite hard. Avoid these.The front hub nuts do not need to be especially tight; just collapses the spacer. (For decades most cars had taper rollers where the nut is finger tight or less and ratained only by the split pin, in which cae a new one is desirable.)

[David Stepney]

Steve and I are referring to the stub axles ,not the half shaft

Thank you Ian: I was aware of that,  but was speaking perhaps more generally. However, whilst writing my previous post, I had a fleeting hallucination of trying to persuade a 'pre-loved' splitpin back through the drilling in the hub and into the stub axle.

[Colin Wilks]

It hadn't occurred to me to just shear the pin, but that's a good tip Ian. Thanks. I was pleased to find the 14mm spark plug socket dodge as I was kicking myself, a set of six sided Whitworth sockets having been on my shopping list for too long, and I was sure a twelve point would end up making a mess.

[AustinWood]

I've always used a 12 point for this because it has a thinner wall. A six point won't fit inside the hub flange.

[Duncan Grimmond]

I was taught that shearing the split pin was a last resort to be avoided if possible and to re-use the pin was only acceptable as a last resort (see above) or in the absence of a handy nail which had been pressed into service by the lack of a suitable punch.
Did someone mention the circular argument conundrum?
My coat’s on that very nail

[Terrytuned]

Use a roll pin then you only have to punch it through the opposite hole. Terry.    

[Charles P]

I've always used a 12 point for this because it has a thinner wall. A six point won't fit inside the hub flange.

This where the traditional box spanner with a thinner wall is useful. 
Place over nut, wack with copper mallet, undo nut. Threads are never damaged in my experience. 

C

[Charles P]

Well I felt it was a good day for a drive to shake down a few settings.
Nice weather for it too. 

   

Charles

[Ian Dunford]

Despite Bob Culver's obvious scorn of we "mechanics", this mechanic can report of no damage to stub axle threads in the last two or three hundred king pin fittings.

[Ivor Hawkins]

There’s no substitute for experience!