Advice for installing new blade brake Toro 20684

Hi,
I have installed a new blade brake on my 20684 (which I really like), but I am having a difficult time installing (attaching) the upper torsion spring to the lever and housing. The spring is very strong and any attempts to attach it to the lever fails. Any advice on how to attach the upper torsion spring would be helpful. The only other thought that I have is to loosen the engine (Suzuki) from the housing, but that seems kind of drastic. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Mark
I will try to attach the mower .pdf file for your reference.

Section 8, starting on page 20 of this manual describes how to do it. Shouldn’t be very hard. https://www.toro.com/getpub/22446

Page 135, figure 233 is where magic happens. Getting the spring out enough to get a wire loop is the difficult part with only two hands. The lever won't move too much, since the brake is new. I will have to prep a wire loop so that I can easily slip the wire around the spring before it slips and I am back to square one. I'll give this a shot, unless there is a better idea. I really like this mower and I am a huge fan of the Suzuki 2 stroke engine. Thanks for your advice,
Mark

I usually use a loop of wire around any spring that I can't pull with vise grips or some kind of spring puller like auto drum brakes take.

The wire loop did the trick. Thanks folks.
Another problem: The Suzuki 2 stroke kicks back on the starter rope. I'm guessing that I have some residual junk in the cylinder. I'll pull the spark plug tomorrow and spin the engine a few time to get out whatever is in the cylinder. My guess that there is some h2o in there since it has been sitting in my shed for over a year. Again, Thanks - Mark

I have not tried to clean out the cylinder, but I'm concerned that the flywheel key is broken or the flywheel is loose. Bummer if it is.