1979 304 with an SR4 trans

["Armand Eshleman" <aje1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Evening listers,

I was looking up the tail end of my 1979 304 crankshaft that
had a SR4 Borg Warner 4 speed manual behind it, when much to
my surprise I noticed a sponge like pad inside the pilot bushing hole
in front of the bushing. My assumption was that  the sponge was there
to act as a lubricant reservoir for the pilot bushing. Have any of you
guys seen this before? I wonder if that nifty little sponge piece is still
available? Maybe from Jeep? When did AMC begin using this? I don't
recall seeing this nifty trick with my 4 speed Camaro many years back,
but of course GM was years behind AMC when it came to making
things reliable.

Now the bad news......... I discovered the hard way that I should probably
be
using a bushing driver to drive in the new pilot bushing into the back of my
70
304 crankshaft. I got it cocked in there and then with my oily fingers I
began
losing control over the socket I was using as a drift (don't try this it
didn't work)
and I bunged my new bushing. Oh, well back to NAPA for another
one............
That guy at NAPA loves it when I walk in because he knows I drop a chunk of
change every time I see him. Any body got a good home side remedy for
driving
this bushing in? I don't really want to drop 50 to 75 bucks to buy a driver
set and
use it once.

Thanks,
Armand