Hi guys,
I've been given a bike with a badly busted S-A AW 3-speed. The axle has broken and the left half is missing entirely. Doing a rough calculation it seems like I'd be able to buy a used hub from Ebay for about the same or less money than what the spare parts alone would cost me.
Question is, which ones can I use?
The bike is only a few years old, while the Ebay hubs are tagged as being vintage. Spoke counts doesn't match, so transplanting the internals is probably the only option.
Can I use "any" AW hub, or is it a particular year that I have to match?

You'll probably run into a problem matching the axle length from an old hub to one that came on a newer bike. More recent AW's will most often be fitted with axle HSA 370, which is 163mm long, older hubs could have HSA 107 (146mm) or HSA 108 (159mm).

What year is the hub with the broken axle?

Seems like you should measure the threading and size of the axle, see if you can find a generic replacement.

Hi Kevin,
Was it you who sold a pair of Ortlieb Bike-packers to a guy from Sweden in October?
I thought that any excess axle would simply protrude outside the wheel nuts, and that the important bit inside the hub would be the same length for all axles. After all, there is only one size hub shell.
Drop out width of frame is about 122 mm.

Good question, hub is stamped 00-4 right where it says "made in England"

This in an internally geared hub, there's some machining at the middle of the axle. I really don't think there's a generic replacement available.

Sturmey-Archer internal gear hub axles are more complex than typical hub axles and seldom have generic replacements:

Maybe ask Sturmey Archer: https://www.sturmey-archer.com/contact
Please post any info you find out.