Yeah, the whole stick. The shifter has a ball shaped end on it that sticks down into the tranny and into the "cup" I was talking about. If the cup is missing, the shifter will move back and forth probably 3" or so when you have it in gear.....with the cup in place it only moves like an inch.
How does the shifter secure to the tranny? It has a metal cup in the shift tower of the tranny that has to be pushed down and rotated counter clockwise about a quarter turn to remove (just like the tcase shifter, if you are familiar with it). You have to remove the console piece from around the shifter, remove the 4 bolts that hold the big boot to the tranny tunnel, remove the small boot that seals the shift tower of the tranny (it has a metal band on it that can be slid up and off the tower.....then I use a tie-wrap/zip-tie to resecure/reseal it when reinstalling), then you will see the metal cup.....press down slightly on it (it has a spring under it, so you have to push hard enough to compress the spring like 1/8" or so), then turn it about a quarter turn and it will pop up and you can pull the shifter out. When you pull the shifter, be careful of the cup on the end of the shifter (if it is there), sometimes it will hang up on the end of the shifter, then fall off as you are pulling the shifter out of the shift tower and fall into "no mans land" in the shift tower.....then you will probably have to pull the tranny (so you can remove the shift tower from it) to retrieve it.
Let me see if I can post a pic of what the cup on the end of the shifter looks like......
it is the dark colored cup, in the pics.
