The shift selector lever

The folks at Bus Depot regretted to inform me that the new shift lever had not arrived in their latest shipment, and might (but might not) arrive in June.  So, I went back to the old shift lever and smoothed out the inside as much as I could, then re-attached it to the shift rod and re-installed the linkage and new boot, with a generous dose of Phil's Waterproof Grease.  It should be better than it was, maybe much better, and can't be any worse.  The problem we'd been having was that the shifter would be very hard to get out of fourth gear if it had been driven for a long stretch without shifting (like, for example, on a trip to Oklahoma).  I suspect that the plastic ball on the trans was binding in the shift lever cup, but we'll see.