First gear hassels

Howdy all. I replaced my first gear and kickstart pawl as it was worn and slipping when I gave it a good boot. I put it all back together (inner and outer case), but now it is very hard to get first gear. I have to pull it up by hand. I noticed that there is a bit of end-play in the layshaft/kickstart shaft. I had to mess about a bit with the quadrant and cam as to get it into 4th gear to re-assemble. I heard that putting in a shim (washer) on the above shaft may fix this problem. The clutch and primary drive are set perfectly. The trouble is with the gearbox set-up as it worked perfectly before I messed with it..... ANY IDEAS? Cheers.

Hope you know what primary chain tension set perfectly means when hot but assume its fine for cold shifts. 1st thing I'd think of is the pawl cothes pin spring gone goffy. I've had that happen like 3x's, not even touching it. You could leave outter gasket off and see if that helps. The other thing I've run into more than once in rather short life on and mostly off Commandos is 1st gear bush get too thin so cog wobbles and fights easy in enagement. If it jumps out of 1st on neutral engine and coating loads then order two of these paper thin 1st bushes.
I've had TS main shaft nut get loose to make shifting silly d/t clutch not every fully engaging. Its such a simple mind bending hobby to put otherwise successful folk in their place. i'm working up nerve for straining to fix a kS grinding free issue that was working fine till I took off primary cover to replace a tiny cover/case screw, so don't feel special, its common confused state to dig ourselves out of again and again. Check dog shiter faces if ya have to.