I had a somewhat similar experience with Teleflex parts. There is no excuse
for the treatment you received from Overton's, but a few years ago Teleflex
canned all of their small distributors and went only with a few national
distributors. They pretty much all carry the main and kit items that are
15% of the total parts but 80% of the sales volume. Teleflex steering
systems list thousands of other parts that fit the basic components to the
many and varied applications, but if you need one of the other 85% of the
parts not carried in distribution, you are pretty much screwed. I could not
find any major distributor that was willing to do a special order for a part
that was not in the distributors stock list. I did not need anything so
complex as a hydraulic cylinder. I worked directly with Teleflex customer
service and got the same response (the parts are available, but you have to
buy them through a distributor...), but when I went through their list of
distributors and could find NO ONE to special order the parts for me, they
sent me the CAD files for the spacers and brakets I needed, and I machined
them up myself.

Hope things work out for you.

Terry