Since I wasn't able to find any information on how this came apart I thought I would take some photos along the way.
Note.....I just bought this car and it was filthy as you will see. Lifting these panels reveled even more debris. Clean now though!
Anyway...I started by gently working a putty knife around the plastic trim piece around the shifter ****.


Then I was able to lift up the larger plastic panel. I pulled the passenger side window switch off in order to move the panel out of the way.




Next was to remove the plastic panel around the shift ****. Gently pry out on tabs to release panel. I then just swung it around out of my way.



Once I had this out of my way I could really see what was going on. I took some needle nose plies and found the small plastic door laying down in the hole along with the spring. Not sure if I can get the door back into position because I believe that a small tab is broken off of one end, and the spring...who knows how that was attached.


Anyway....I have an idea for a fix but cant do it tonight. When I complete it I will come back and edit this thread to show my fix.
So I got all the debris cleaned out and put things back together for the evening.