Ok, I've nutted it out. After pulling the whole stick apart I discovered that there is a large Donut shaped metal washer which sits in a groove in the plastic of the housing. Everytime I pushed the stick this washer popped out of its groove and caused the stick to get stuck. I used super glue to stick the washer to the plastic so it won't move out of its position and that seems to have worked. Not sure if its meant to be stuck in place to begin with but it ain't going anywhere now!