hodgeee

They arrived yesterday, and I made an appointment for a differential shop to press out the factory bushings, and install the solid ones, but the solid bushings look way to big for my leaf spring eye holes.

Caltracs told me that the eye hole was the same as stock, but when I hold the bushing up there, it looks about 1/4" too big to fit. I was sure that the Hotchkis leafs had different bolt hole sizes, and that is what Jeff who I talked to said. Man, I now I gotta wait another week

Does anyone with the Hotchkis leafs have the Caltrac bars, and do you know if the bushing is smaller or not? Thanks.
Getting to where I hate mail order!

GMC SKI

I'm still wating on mine and i ordered before you I hate living in Canada sometimes ..
Creederado has hotchkis leaf and he recently got the Caltracs
Hope he chimes in

02Reaper

iTrader: (2)

I have the stock springs, and there is another sleeve besides the rubber one that has to be pushed through and still it is a tight fit to get the aluminum one in there, I had to chamfer one side and beat mine in with at ten pound sledgehammer and something like an ax blade was laid across it to distribute the weight across it evenly (took about 5 minutes to get it started). You will have to pry the lip up and push the sleeve that the rubber bushing is in out too.

creederado

I must be lucky, Mine slide right in the Hotchkis leaf.

I melted the bushing out with a torch and than punded out the metal sleave.
I"ll measure the bushing today to see if you received a bigger one.

http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/bc/cre...tos.yahoo.com/

Caltrac bars.
1) remove front leaf spring bushing
2) put caltrac aluminum bushing in it's place.
3) place the two pivoting brackets on either side of the front leaf spring eyelet.
4)replace the bottom axle u-bolt bracket with cal trac version. This has a bracket to hold the rear of the caltrac bar.
5) bolt leaf spring back on,
6) now place the adjustable bar from the pivoting bracket on front spring eyelet to the axle -ubolt braket. Adust the bar (at driving height) so that the pivoting bracket compresses against the top/front of the leaf spring.
once you have contact, preload the bar and enjoy.
***front of bar has radious rod end-male thread with nut(to lock position)
rear of bar has femal radious rod end.This enables you to adjust the lenght of the bar allowing the pivot bracket to "press" down on the leaf spring. When your driving around normally you can lenghthen the bar and "un press" the spring.
Basically the front pivot uses a bolt across the top of the leaf spring to press down on the spring and stop it from flexing,bouncing, etc. The way it achieves this is by being conected to the axle by an adjustable bar that goes underneath the leaf spring. *From the front pivot bracket to the rear axle bracket* Tension can be adjusted as well as having two sets of hole positions.
THIS IS IN MY OWN WORDS SO I HOPE IT HELPED.

hodgeee

Thanks Creederado: I looked at your picture of the bar and solid bushing, and I can see that your bushing looks much thinner than mine. I also held mine up to my stock leafs in the back yard, and they look like perfect fits to the stockers, but are too big for the Hotchkis. I also remember reading somewhere that someone said that the Hotchkis bushings were smaller also, but your picture says a thousand words. Just need to call them and have them send out the correct ones is all! I made measurements also to make sure the bars were not too long either. The only thing different on mine compared to your pictures, is that I have the low profile caltracs with only one lower hole in the front pivoting bracket.

Thanks much guys.