MrWizard wrote:
No adjustments
If it stays up, and doesn't come down you are ok
I cannot agree with that. If it that badly worn, it is going to fail and probably at the lest convenient moment. Besides the possibility of failure, there is the noise caused by road bounce and abnormal wear caused by not being held firmly in the retracted position.
Trying to write out everything I would do and look at would take a lot of time and may not speed up the process for the OP. It is a lot like wiring outlets, if you know how to do it, it is easy, if you don't, it can be time consuming and cost a lot of money.
A search of posts in the archives will give the OP the things that should be checked.