with the face plate open and looking straight at it. There's a dog leg at the levers base,, meaning the flat metal where it make a 90 degree turn.
I would clamp vise grips on the arm / tale up lever and just give it a slight pull up ward, aka rebend the arm
of course you'll have to figure out how you want to keep the machine from turning over, while you do that.
I just checked mine, it will bent pretty easy. when it's down like in the pic, there is at best 1/8 " clearance,, when all the way up maybe thats a 1/4" clearance ,, so twice as much on top as at the bottom.