Question to owners or ex-owners of CAL CL-15 CDP

My question to owners or ex-owners of California Audio Labs CL-15 CD player: my recently acquired player had scratches on top of the cover. I removed the cover and brought it to a tech at a powder painting shop.

He did an excellent job, the cover looked as new and I settled down to fix it.

Unfortunately, I could not install the cover! It appears that one side of the cover has two lugs which should enter two barely visible slots on top of the faceplate, but the sides of the cover had to be bent with great force, which I tried without success.

As a result of my efforts, two scratches appeared on the sides of the cover, and I just don't know what I should do to assemble the player, though I did not experience any problems when removing the cover before going to the paint shop.

I remember when I sold a similar player ten years ago, the buyer drove me to his tech for testing, he opened the cover and everything was OK, but I remember that there some problems with putting the cover in place, but don't remember how they finally managed it.

Perhaps, someone could tell me how it works…

Thanks in advance for recommendations.