what happened to the bearing..... I had mine apart last night doing cleaning... mine slide apart no problem... you may have to wiggle it a bit but that is it...... Did the bearing fall apart? It's metal so kind of hard to break.... The reason I said to make sure the shift unit remains upright is because if you put it on upside down.... It won't shift.... make sure you remove the little screw to remove the bearing from the gear... (tiny philips head at center of gear )... this is maybe why you had trouble with the bearing.