I took the shifter apart as promised. Here are some pics.
As you can see, there's a big gap between the stick and the blue piece, so the stick wiggles left-right a lot. Also, pieces of the roller bearing are gone. I think I need a new bearing and some washers to fix this. I was tempted to put the stock shifter back in, but seeing how long the lower part of the short shifter stick is, now I want to keep it and make it work. I think this bearing might work, the problem is how to press the old one out and press this new one in properly.