When I bought my '63 Effie, it used a bracket on the block with the ball you speak of. The previous owner, who'd swapped the '64 390 PI engine in---it had come from the factory as a six---used a bronze split bushing that I found listed as a Thunderbird part. I replaced it while tightening-up the clutch linkage. One put the split bronze around the ball and then pushed the cross-tubing over the OD of the bushing. But three or four months later, I needed to do it again. The ball was damaged to such an extent it simply 'ate' the bronze. I took the bracket off the block and removed the ball. I put a bolt through the hole left, slipped on a washer I made from a piece of bar stock Delrin---drilled the center on my drill-press and then put a bolt and nut through the hole and chucked it up in the DP and used a file on the OD until it fit in the tube. Pushed some grease into the tube for residual lubrication and put it back together. Was still just like that when I sold the truck thirty years later.
KS