That is a little setback, but it’s better to fix it now before real damage is done.
Most definitely! The guy who assembled it will be fixing the bearings for me on Monday. He's got a good reputation and came recommended by people I trust so I think this was just one of those "shit happens" things.
I removed the old bushings from the differential ears last night, and installed the new urethane ones that came with the control arms. Used the drill method to remove the rubber and inner sleeve, pounded the crap out of the outer bushing with bfh and cold chisel, made very short work of that. I'm about halfway through setting up all the rear control arms, etc.
Also had a go at replacing the bushings on the front lower control arms, and what a mess I made of that. The first one (oval shaped) went in without drama. The second one (round) must have been off line and, although I should have known better, I used an impact driver to run it in. With a great "pop", it settled in place but not before distorting the metal of the control arm around the bushing. That was really disappointing because it's a nice, clean, good looking control arm. Tried my luck on the other control arm, started with the oval bushing because it worked on the first one, but this time I used a hand wrench for better control. This time the bushing got crooked too and started crushing the control arm - I had a socket on one side to prevent that, but looks like I should have had two. Anyhow, stopped and backed it out before any damage (hopefully) was done.
Rather than potentially making a bad situation worse, I dropped the control arms and bushings off at the shop that will be doing the front end alignment down the road and hopefully they'll be able to undo my heavy handed damage tomorrow and deliver me a working pair of control arms with bushings installed.
Talk about embarrassing. I was really tempted to bury them in the back forty late at night, buy replacements or tubulars and not speak a word of it to anyone!