After doing a lot of amateur restoration on my 444 I got it running but not "sorted" back in 2012. Then I put it aside and moved on to homebuilt airplanes. Now I have aged out of that and am working on getting the 444 truly road worthy. I found that the idler arm had some "play" and ordered new bushings, the spacer and the O rings.

Now I am trying to understand how it works. I looks to me like the bolt is intended to clamp the spacer in place and the bushings and arm are to pivot around the spacer. After taking it apart I find that the old spacer appears to be a perfect fit inside the old bushings. So I am thinking that back in the day I put it together wrong, and the spacer was not clamped, so the play I am seeing is between the bolt and spacer.

My problem is the the spacer length and arm thickness are virtually the same. I question that there is enough difference for me to clamp the spacer without binding on the arm. I could shim the end of the spacer somehow, or grind a little off the arm thickness to get it to clamp but I'm thinking there must be a better way.

Looking for suggestions. I am very humble about my skills and wondering what I am missing.