sounds like the valves are good...

yet, sounds like your heading in the right direction with the cables on backwards, or possible the servo motor itself. If it had been taken apart, I would suspect it, or possible the connector to the servo (wired been reversed) providing power to the wrong terminals on the servo motor, making it run in reverse?

Hopefully the manual will help you out. It looks like a delivery attempt was made today (got an automated email from USPS about the delivery), so you should have it very soon, if not already!