An air chisel or some type of vibration applied might prove helpful. I've done the air chisel on a terribly rusted hub to help break it loose

 

There is a big steel pin like 3/4 inch dia, shifter is hooked to it , it slides left and right, one side you can see sticking out of the shift housing hooked to linkage you see, this pin in mine was heavy rusted so the pin could not go left through the shift housing it is a everything tight fit, wish I had pics

 

i had nearly the same experience as Tom, but mine wasn't really rusted. Whatever grease had been put in the CDL had hardened and caused it to be inoperable. Its a fairly easy job to pull the console and remove the CDL. I ended up taking mine completely apart and sealing it with a piece of rubber to keep the junk out. Search for Danny Lee's thread on this for console removal.