[Free911]

Thanks in advance for any help. I am a muscle car guy but just got a 1974 911 2.7 targa from a friend of mine. Car has not run in a few years mostly because the transmission was out and he never had it fixed. He said he thought the Syncros were out, he was not able to get it into gears anymore. So started to take things apart (following the 911 motor drop tech article on this site), to drop the motor and tranny.
Side note, it's weird not taking a motor out from the top, but ill have to get used to that. Got to removing the clutch arm and the shift linkage coupler.

So first off the bushing in the coupler was gone, chunks in the rubber boot.
Second most of the articles talk about a helper spring on the clutch arm, mine does not have one. Just the arm and doesn't look like there is a space on the arm for even a simple spring.
1. should there be a spring on this model?
2. could the couple bushing being gone make the tranny not be able to catch gears?
If so, could be way cheaper than I thought to fix.
Any help or pictures would be great thanks
Tim