As noted, you may find the new housing too tight to turn the rod. I encountered this with a repro housing on a friends car about 20 years ago. What I did was carefully remove the small spring clip. I slid it up a long, gradually tapered punch similar to an ice pic to SLIGHTLY spread the clip. If you look at it closely at this point you will find the clip is oval from flexing opposite the split only, and not seated on the punch all the way around. Using the anvil section of your bench vise and a hammer, tap the clip all the way around. This will make the spring clip take a set to the round shape of the punch.
Keep in mind that it is MUCH easier to make the clip round when enlarging it than it is if you need to shrink it. Do it in a very small increment and check the fit.
As a final note, about 15 years ago I saw where Less Andrew wrote "remove the spring clip" on repro housings to free them up. I'm sure there were plenty of folks that bought into that idea so now you know why/how the problem arose with yours.