This exact thing happened to me. The previous owner had assembled the kicker wrong. (it would be easy to do) He neglected to line up the notch in the plastic bushing inside the return spring with the ear on the spring that goes into the shaft. You can still put the cover on and it will be free when the screws are loose, but when you torque up the screws it binds.
If you have it on and it it is bound up just try loosening the screws around the kicker and I bet it frees up. Mine was bound so I decided to pull the cover back off and when I loosened the screws the damn kicker popped loose and almost took out a couple teeth...
