'65 Barracuda FS factory sway bar bushing replacement

As many of you know, the '65 Barracuda Formula S has a factory sway bar. I'm restoring the car and want to reuse the original sway bar and mounts, but the factory inner bushings are bad. I've removed them, painted the bar and brackets and am trying to reinstall new rubber bushings sourced from Atlas auto parts. These reproductions fit many early '60s Mopars including C body cars as well as A body, are a bit small at 3/4" with the bar being 13/16", but they will fit with a little compression. Anyone familiar with this problem knows it is very challenging, if not impossible, to get the new bushings pressed into the factory brackets. In order to even get the bushings over the end eye bolt opening, (which is 1.5" and the bushing hole is 3/4") I decided to make a clean cut on the back side of the bushing with a razor blade, so as to get it over the bar, and that worked fine, but I simply cannot compress the rubber enough to push it into the factory bushing holder. I did read a posting that said to cut the welds on the brackets, install the new bushing, and re-welded the bottom of the bushing holder back in place. I'm at the point where I don't see any alternative, but am very concerned about damaging the bushing from heat. Before I go to this rather drastic attempt to get these installed, I thought I'd ask the group if anyone knows of a better method. I'm not interested in using any aftermarket parts or sway bars, I just want to get these bushing installed in the original holders. It's a mystery to me why these were made so unserviceable in the first place.