Mini cooper gearbox issue

Had the stiff neutral gearbox issue with my mini cooper. I took out the gear selector on top of the gearbox to replace the neutral pin. However now that I have put the selector back in it is difficult to get into gear. It was fine selecting gears before just neutral that was stiff. It's difficult to put in and take out of gear. And also neutral now had some play in it there doesn't seem to be and spring tension from the gearbox