A very rare event occurred on the weekend and I drove my Escort. Unfortunately after a very short time the shifter parted ways with the gearbox as a result of a disintegrated ball joint in the shifter.
 
As I am now looking to fix this, I was wondering what peoples opinions were on a fix/replacement. I have seen these (http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Ford-Escort-Cortina-4-Speed-single-rail-Short-Throw-Shifter-New-/281949949497) complete short throw shifters on eBay but believe these can be quite noisy. My preference would be for something a bit quieter, so maybe I should just replace the bush with something like this (http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/BORG-WARNER-SINGLE-RAIL-SHIFTER-REPAIR-PARTS-SUIT-FORD-VALIANT-SIGMA-TOYOTA-P76-/262290119652)... that's assuming it is even the right part... I am a bit out of touch with what's what on the Escort now.
 
I would be interested to hear opinions on these or other options.

Depends on what year you car is , any pre mid 73 it will have a one piece box(Belhousing moulded into the gear case) these have a 40mm thread into the gear selector.. all others are 42mm thread Inc mk2 escort, Cortina tc to tf 4cyl only . All sticks are the same design so you can Butcher one to repair another . I think Falcon xd/xf 4 speeds are close design for spares etc tho are 40mm from memory.
I've had/have the rose joint lever and even being a Quaife stick it still buzzes at certain revs , i just live with it.

Having a stick escape it's place is common and happens at the most unwanted times. .. back when I was in my 20s i dragged a torana xu1 , changing from 3rd to 4th i reefed the stick so quick it landed on the back seat , lucky it got 4th gear and i just won the race..

Sorry, I should have been more detailed. The car is a Mk2 Escort RS2000 with standard 4 speed box.

We went to the rose jointed version as per link many years ago with no issues on reliability. Can't comment on noise though as both are competition not road cars