I never saw one with that shifter missing, guess I can't say that anymore.
I had two of them and that never gave me any trouble. I replaced the 15C with the blade that is on the 15C on my avatar with another newer and less wore out 15C. The picture on the avatar is the newer 15C with the older blade which I liked better because of the added bars on top of the blade for protection when pushing brush stumps etc. The same picture is on my Heavy Equip Forums avatar. Much to my surprise a guy from the state of Va who is also on Heavy Eqiuip Forums messaged me asking if I had owned the 15C with that unique blade, I said I did, and much to my surprise, he said he owns it now. In 2016 I was still in NE Minnesota and traded the 15C for a 624G JD loader to a Wi used equip dealer. He sold the 15C to an Ohio farmer and a few years later sold it to the guy in Va who runs a land clearing business and still uses it. The unique blade is the reason why I found out what happened to it,
DWF