I didn't want to pay for shipping, so I had the bushings come in on the bi-monthly stock order to my dealer. That was today! Here are a couple of the bushings.
For the side plates, I'm working with 3/8" thick by 2 1/2" flat stock. I cut the stock to 12" length using a my new Harbor Freight 4x6 bandsaw, which was the tool that I used this job as an excuse to finally buy. The final straw on the chop saw was that it always arced out at the end of the cut, meaning my ends were never straight.
I drilled pilot holes 8" apart, using the first piece as a jig for the subsequent ones. I hand-aligned the blank with the cut piece and drilled the first hole in the blank, then I stuck a 1/4" bolt through the two holes and drilled through the cut piece's second hole into the blank. This guarantees that the spacing between the pieces is the same.
Next, I went at it with a hole saw. I prefer to pre-drill my pilot holes when using a hole saw in metal because it ensures that the hole is exactly where I want it, and also because the pilot bits that come with hole saws aren't stellar drill bits.
My 1.5" hole saw fit the bushings perfectly, but unfortunately, my holes were not precisely positioned enough to exactly match the pin spacing on the bucket. So I ran to the hardware store and got a 1 5/8" hole saw. This should give just enough slop to allow positioning the bushings, while not leaving so much gap that it ends up being hard to weld the bushings in. I had to go back and enlarge the 1" holes that I drilled, which took some figuring out, since there was nothing to hold the pilot bit in place and keep the hole saw from skipping all over. I ended up putting a second piece of metal underneath and aligning the two so that the pilot hole on the bottom piece caused the hole saw to line up correctly on the top piece.
I've moved my bucket over to my welding station and removed it from the tractor. The next task is to tack the bushings into the side plates. I plan to use the existing pins in the bucket as a jig to ensure perfect spacing. I'm tempted to try to go at it tonight, but I never do a very good job working off a halogen work lamp, and I couldn't take pictures for y'all either.