Had more important stuff to deal with other that the bike for a few days, thank god everything turned out "great".
The lock nut was soooo tight that I could not loosen it . The allen wrench got cocked a little bit in the adjuster and I had to wiggle it out .. I talked to a friend and they said it should not be that tight, DUH". So, when you look into the area where the adjuster and the lock nut are located you can see a snap-ring. I was told to remove the snap-ring and the whole adjuster & lock nut and the plate come out as one. Nothing will fall out behind it . I took out the assy. and put the lock nut into the bench vise . I put a large pair of channel locks on the plate and still had to use considerable force to break the lock nut off of the adjuster, BUT it did come off. No evidence of lock tight or anything else??? put it back together and adjusted per instructions and everything was great... I could not spin the lock nut off of the front of the adjuster shaft so that led me to believe that when the allen wrench twisted in the adjuster at the beginning it oblonged the head of it.. I ordered a new one .. Interesting, HUH ???
