I'd just cut the old shaft off from the bottom and plug the hole, be done in about 15 minutes.

 

I did the same thing, just left the old shift shaft in place, however I did change the transmission lever without pulling the primary. It is not hard just get yourself an offset screwdriver and do a search for member frozen chrome he explains how to do it.

If you can not find his thread let me know and I will explain how to do it. I am glad I did as shifting and finding neutral is the same as it was with mids. Before I changed to the longer lever finding neutral was quite hard

 

In think i will just use the hacksaw blade and cut the shift shaft. Might leave the mids for a couple days just to be sure I like the forwards. If you have any tips on removing the transmission lever I'd like to hear them. It looks like it would be tough to get it off and even harder to get the new one on.

 

I read the thread that you are your talking about and couldn't get the transmission lever off last weekend. Got any tips for me?