[patrickt]

There are several videos on YouTube that show you how to pop out the bushing. It's not as easy as people say it is. For now, put that down as last on the list and just start with putting on two springs, check your initial timing at idle with a gun, and also read what your total timing at 3500RPM is (just rev it to 3500RPM there in the driveway and see what your timing is using the gun). Remember, somebody set that distributor up at some time in the past and they didn't set it up with broken/missing springs. So the chances are reasonable that the bushing is probably OK, maybe it can be improved, but that can wait. If the initial timing is OK, and the bushing is OK, then the total timing is likely to be OK. OTOH, if a shade tree mechanic tried to improve the performance of the engine and never noticed that the distributor springs and weights were big time broken and out of whack, then your initial timing could be anything. You won't know until you check. So first just figure out what everything is set at when you have springs installed and then we'll give you some ball park suggestions as to what to set it all at -- it's not rocket science.