I think you should be able to move the SST Hydrostatic control arm forward or back to provide clearance. See the diagram in the lower left of the attached engineering drawings. There's a 58 degree range of motion for the control arm.

 

this is when the shop manual comes in handy. hard to explain things by words sometimes.
money well spent after spending all that coin

 

Moving the Lever helped a bit but not much. I had to remove the L bracket that holds the cable in place to the sidewall. I uploaded a video for others to learn from. Raw and unedited so a bit repetitive. Don't forget to turn off the fuel supply before tipping the snowblower forward.

 

Its strange that so many of these are breaking in our little town lately. The cold? moisture getting into cable sheath?
I only see these break on the older HS models after 20 years or more.

FYI you can use hook pins instead of cotter. remove and replace with needle nose pliers.