Seiko 5 very stiff crown/stem

[kd8tzc]

Okay, so I picked up an NH36 movement from Watch Modz, which was a really nice and quick experience for those who are the USA. 

One question I have is this, I have the NH36 and it comes with a thinner grey spacer that is too thin for the Seiko SNK809 case that the old movement came out of.  I have placed the black spacer on the NH36, but there are two spots, where there is an indent on the plastic to fit into the movement, that just doesn't want to sit flat.  I couldn't get any great pictures, but hopefully these show what I am talking about.  Two from directly over the hump and two from the sides.

Anyone know how to persuade the plastic to sit flat?

[kd8tzc]

Update:

I did get the spacer to lie nice and flat... I just had to adjust it a little more and all is laying down nicely now.... but another issue has cropped up and  this is really odd, and I know I messed something up so I'm hoping to learn something from this. 

I was going to put the SNK809 all back together last night and when I got to the hands from the watch it looked like they somehow got stuck together.  I tried to get a good picture, but I don't know if you will be able to see this very well.  When I look at this, it looks like the Minute hand and hour hand merged with each other.... meaning, one of the post attachment's went through the other.  I used a Presto tool to remove the hands when I took them off... is that a danger of using the presto tool and not the hand leavers?  I've removed a number of hands so far and never an issue until I got to these.  I also noticed that the lume fell off between the skeleton of the hands too.

Does anyone with more experience than me know what happened and how I prevent this in the future?