bought the rear leaf spring conversion kit from JPL streetrods made by chassis engineering. for 575 id expect it to come with a $20 set of bushing but it didnt. so i ordered new ones from chevys of the 40s. 10$ to ship a 1/2 pound item US mail and 8 days later lol they showed up. tried to install and no way in hell will these press in. put them in freezere for 2 days and tried again. same thing. i dont want to take a torch to heat the leaf springs themselves and of course its sat so both shops are closed. and of course i finally have some time and its above 40 degrees so i was hoping to make progress. any ideas? i mean these arent even close to press fitting inside. i was going to try and just start them with a hammer (not directly on the bushing but up against a bolt head or something) and then use some all thread to push them in but i cant get these things even close to started. the rear leaf kit says to use stock bushings by the way.
I used a 2x4 against the bushing then hammered against the 2x4, in a 58 chevy pickup spring... took a bit but they finally lined up!
Last ones I did were so tight that I put them on a belt sander and beveled one edge to allow them to go in. I also had to use some silicon bushing grease on the bushing to help it to go in, and put a big fender washer on both sides of the spring eye and a piece of allthread rod to pull it in as I tapped on it with a dead blow hammer. Once it started in I was able to pull them down with the threaded rod pretty easily.