In for a penny, in for a pound.

Whelp, it took some work, but I figured out how to beat off a stuck rod. |･ω･)

Jokes aside, I decided to take the consensus of advice and make an attempt at repair. Obviously, I'm nowhere near done. I just wanted to put it out there that as much as I want to, I'm not throwing in the towel just yet. I doubt I can fix this, but even if I don't, I'll at least learn about how the mechanism is assembled by taking it apart. At the end of the day, I'm learning something from it.

So, yeah, thirty some minutes of hammering and cursing finally dislodged this damn thing. I started with a pin punch until it wouldn't reach, then moved onto a long screwdriver, and finally I just grabbed the stupid thing with a locking wrench and rotated it back and forth while constantly pulling on it. I lost track of how many times I had to stop, tap all the levers back up the rod, pull a little, stop, do it again, etc. These things bind up if you breathe on them.

Luckily, my fears of breaking the levers didn't come to pass. They're all kinds of messed up, but they're intact. I think the hardest part is behind me.

Also what's the worst that could happen, I'm so glad my car runs, the weather looks great tomorrow, and this week is going to be problem-free. I figure if I use all the jynxes, they'll stack overflow and revert to extremely good luck.

Right now, the problem is that I don't have enough room to pull the levers out.

They're connected to the vertical posts that press the price flags up by what looks like a rivet. That's probably wrong, but I don't recognize the connection. I doubt it's meant to be assembled by someone in that tight of a space, so I probably need to remove all the other stuff as a kind of order of operations.

Which means pulling out this giant hunk of metal whose purpose I don't understand, nor do I know what removing it will do. Either way, I'm gonna do it. After all, it's not like I can break it any harder. I'll still try to be careful and document the disassembly in case by some miracle I unfuck this machine, but my confidence is pretty shot at this point.

Oh and aaaaall this gets to come out, too! :D

Ah well. Have a definitely intact horse art as a midnight snack. One of these days I'm going to have to convince @selenophileart to draw a fully clothed safe for work Christian cartoon horse working on an antique cash register.

Artist sauce: Selenophile ;)