Merry Christmas! I was able to get away and get some time in the garage today. Nick helped me with the arduous task of removing the very rusted rubber bushing steel sleeves from my rear shackles this week with a hydraulic press and a blow torch so I thought I could get the rear leaf springs on the frame before I install my traction bars. But before I could insert the new bushings I needed to clean the 30 years of crud from the inside of the sleeve with some WD-40 and a wire brush. Once these were clean enough I wiped the WD-40 off and lubed the bushings with some silicon. Then, after cleaning my frame shackles with a wire wheel I was able to finally get the drivers side leaf spring installed. This was only after double checking to ensure I put them on correctly (point of wedge facing forward to lift pinion angle to compensate for lifted springs). It was a very tight fit - good thing I had my fancy Harbor Freight orange dead blow hammer.
Then I had some clearance trouble with the shackle bolt clearing the frame (cleared barely after standing on leaf spring to rotate shackle)as well as lining up my bolts with the spring eye bushing bolt sleeve. Shackle bushing is red because Superlift's bushings were back ordered to late next month so I bought Skyjacker to keep the project moving forward. Superlift no longer sells red bushings - at least that is what they told me. . .Finished just in time to come inside to watch the Chargers embarrass the Titans.