Front Leaf springs and center bolt

[rancherrob]

I seem to have lost the bolt that went down the center of the stack of front leaf springs as show in TM9-2320-209-20p illustration 146. I looked up the part # 5306-00-930-5083 at parttarget.com and it says it's a 5-1/4" machine bolt with 1-1/4" max thread (24). So my questions is, assuming I can find such a bolt at the hardware store, will I be able to simply install it or will I need to pre-compress the springs somehow? My mechanic friend says to just get a really long bolt like 18" and then once the nut is tightened down and the springs compressed, cut to length. He says need it long to start nut while springs uncompressed. Any of ya'll taken the leaf springs apart and dealt with this? I had the bright idea I was going to powdercoat everything and 6 months later I'm trying to figure out how to get the front end back together
Thanks,
Rob
p.s. no pics of powder coated leaf springs but thought you might be interested in the rest

 

[Coal Cracker]

a local Fastenal, can get it for you, or fastenal online.