Well super good news for me boys! I finally had the time today to get underneath and see what was going on. I was expecting to have to mess with the linkages. Turns out the actuator plug was just not securely clipped into place. So after about 10 seconds of fiddling around to get it snapped in right, all is good.
The one thing I'm sort of irritated about with this project is that now I have some engine noise. I'm certain that removing the dash caused some of that foam to unseal and/or shift around. Not sure if I have the energy to try to identify and figure it out.