Don't you love it when that happens!!
Yeah, sorry, we got wacked with wicked bad weather and a ton of work, so I drifted off this problem for a bit, plus was waiting for the service manual to come in which I ordered as per one suggestion. Manual showed up yesterday and I'm back to it.
I think the lift arm position linkage is fubar and needs to be set back to spec, but the service manual only says what to do (e.g., "adjust linkage."), not how to do it (e.g., "adjust linkage by..."). Swines above explains how, and I'll give that a shot this weekend now that things have settled down a bit.
I really appreciate all the replies and beg pardon for not being responsive to my own thread !!