No, if you disconnect the linkage and put a similarly-thick washer under each idle stop, it should open each throat the same without using the linkage.
Unless I'm mistaken (now THAT might be a first ) that is what Rich was doing.
On the Service manual, I kind-of went overboard and scanned in my old, pertinent reference stuff and then organized everything like a Bentleys, but I added a host of hyper-links to help navigate around. Now, I bring up the table of contents and just click on the stuff I want to see and it goes there. Wrote the whole thing in Word. I've attached the chapter on the Electrical system, if you're curious - It's the most involved with lots of scans. Just go to the reference at the top and click on what you want to see.