Ghetto instal on caltrac front eye bushing, and pinion angle?

[JeRM82]

I'm planning on installing my cal-tracs next weekend, and I was wondering if anyone who has them put the front eye bushings in without taking the entire leaf out of the truck. The instructions say to have the bushing pressed into the eye, and to not use a hammer or a vise.....I was just wondering if anyone put thiers in with a "C-clamp" and two pieces of wood. What do you guys who have installed that bushing think about doing that? If I don't have to pull the back of the leaf off of the truck and just leave it hooked up while I instal the cal-tracs that would be pretty easy compared to stuffing a set of leafs into my friend's jeep chick-o-ree and driving over to a shop with a press. Any tips or heads up on things to look out for while installing my cal-tracs would be great.....
One thing that I have been toying with is the idea about pulling the overload leafs out. The truck will never tow anything and it will have a snug-top on it in the near future....so nothing REALLY heavy will be going into the back of it........what do you guys think? I have seen a few threads where people talk about pulling the overloads, and it seems like it wouldnt jack with my every day use of the truck and still help the truck squat while at the track.....

[txarkitekt]

I would venture to say you could do the clamp and 2x4 trick. Just make sure it is centered on it and doesn't wanna walk on ya... I think the pinion andle shuld be around -3.

Pulling the overloads will give you more squat in the rear on launch and about a 3/4-1 inch of drop in the back--but you will need longbars or Caltracs to prevent axle wrap. Since you are installing Caltracs, you won't have an issue.

[JeRM82]

I've never had to mess with pinion angle before.....is -3 alright, or should it be something different....the truck is a daily driver, and will see as much track time that I can once I buy an FLT trans and eventually a TVS blower.....I know I have to "play" with the shock settings to get my truck to squat right.....just not really sure what to do with the pinion angle....

[pl4yboy]

I've never had to mess with pinion angle before.....is -3 alright, or should it be something different....the truck is a daily driver, and will see as much track time that I can once I buy an FLT trans and eventually a TVS blower.....I know I have to "play" with the shock settings to get my truck to squat right.....just not really sure what to do with the pinion angle....

-3 is good. Anything positive is bad.

[RedHeartbeat]

a piece of all-thread and a large diameter socket works as a device to draw the bushing through the spring. The hardest part will be getting the old bushing out.

[trx2stroke4life39]

The hardest part will be getting the old bushing out.

Torch and burn it out. And when you cut the out part of the bushing that touches the spring you just have to be good enough to cut it with out getting the spring to hot.

[JeRM82]

I didnt even think about getting the old bushing out.....ha ha....hmm....maybe i can just use the c-clamp over a socket on the stationary side of the c-clamp....ao the bushing just spits out of the leaf INTO the socket and a piece of metal on the moving end sorta like a punch to push it through....or just the foot of the clamp itself....
Thanks for the heads up on the pinion angle.....good to know i can just yank the overloads and not have to worry about messing with shims and that little needle deal-e-oh to correct it.....