[Walt Fricke]

From the pictures it looks like the fore and aft adjustment is a bit off. The tang for 5th/reverse should sort of center between the vertical tabs, or maybe a bit aft. You want the same distance between neutral and 1,3,5 as you have for 2, 4, R. You want the tang to go far enough forward so that the spring pressure is taken up by the tang and tab overlapping, but far enough back so the same happens for reverse. The little flipper also helps line things up - when you put it in 5th, the flipper's spring should move it back to blocking reverse. When you pull out of 5th, the flipper should allow the lever to move over to 3/4 and 1/2 (the neutral plane).

Short shifters which work by using stock parts but you pull the bottom part (with the ball for the ball cup) off so you can substitute a longer piece all require a plate to raise the shift tower up. Otherwise, the long rod back to the transmission would be bumping into the floor pan.

The factory short shifter, however, does not require a plate, and neither of mine came with one in the factory kit. The factory part does have a longer bottom part, but the cage which holds the fore and aft pivot pin has that pin higher. This matches the longer lower part.

The really good thing about the factory kit is that the side to side motion is not changed - you still move the lever as far to the right or left as you always did. Having this distance is very helpful. With the inexpensive short shifters, the side to side motion is reduced in the same proportion as with the fore and aft. This can make getting the side to side adjustment a bit trickier, but mainly puts the three gear planes closer together, which makes it easier to select the wrong gear when up or down shifting. Up shift misses are just embarrassing. Downshift misses can get pretty expensive.