The folks above nailed it . I had the same problem and used PB Blaster to free it up. It was not quick or easy, but with a lot of patience ( as in soak, tap-tap-tap with the hammer), soak again....etc, it can be done. It took a couple of days of spraying and letting it "soak" . I found that tapping the ends of the rod worked best for me. Tap left to right, right to left and soak the crap out of it and let it sit. I'm not the brightest, apparently, because I tried tapping up / down on the counter balance weight and bent it down, straightened it back out........
Its free as a bird now. I think you'll get it with that method, if not, there's Jerry's Victor Hot Wrench.
