Yeah those washers and shims must be in there correctly or it will bind. I made some pictures that show how loose the whole thing should be.

You should not be using the pitch control links to adjust collective pitch, these are for fine-tuning the pitch of each blade. The collective pitch should be adjusted mainly by the servo link pushrods.

Here is how it should be: take off the blades. pop the servo link rods off the swashplate, so the swash is dangling from the paddle control links and the Bell mixer pushrods. Now, if you lift up on the flybar control frame, you can see how the collective pitch works. This whole assembly should be free enough to drop of its own weight all the way from the top of the travel (full negative pitch) to the bottom (full pos pitch). If there is _any_ binding at this time, track it down and fix it before going further.

Look at the pics: side view and front view, up and down, just dropping it out of my fingers and it falls to full + pitch.
If it doesn't do this you will have a "sticky collective."

I am suspicious of your "cure." The steps are supposed to go toward the bearing. I think you should take it apart again and make sure that it is assembled 100 percent correctly, or we will be in uncharted territory and you will be on your own.