Thanks everyone for the detailed explanations. Things are making a lot more sense tonight after I played around with my shifter a bit more. I found out that I had put the front cover on a bit wrong (although consistent with how the other side looked) and that was what was preventing it from clicking into the detents. So now that I know that works, I'm a lot more confident that I can get this bike shifting again. I won't be able to mess with it until tomorrow after work though as it's too late now. I will keep you updated and hopefully be able to report back as to what finally fixed it.

srvblues00: I'm a turbo car fan too. Project #1 is a 1986 Porsche 944 turbo (lots of mods, 330 rwhp) and my daily driver/project #2 is a 1992 Eagle Talon AWD turbo (slightly modded). Both fun cars and the Talon will even get me to the ski slopes with ease I can also fit two bikes in the backseat as I found out this weekend.