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I had a similar problem with a 6-speed Foote - it gradually became very hard to shift and eventually locked completely up. Once I priced a replacement, I wound up splitting the transaxle, figuring that I had nothing to lose. Furtunately, I was able to fix it without having to buy anything other than new axle seals. I don't know if I can explain this, but I'll try. On my unit, the shifter shifted into the various gears by means of a ball bearing that, under pressure from a spring, locked into detents on a plate connected to the shifter. Whenever one would change gears, forcing the shift lever would eventually overcome the resistance created by the spring, and the ball bearing would slide out of that detent to the next one. This shifter plate also attached to a fork which aligned the gears in the necessary order. If you look at where your shifter enters the transmission case, you should see a couple of screws nearby. Underneath one of these screws is the spring which forces down on the ball bearing - turning the screw in should increase the pressure against the ball bearing and make it more difficult to change gears (the screw was frozen in my unit). In my case the ball bearing had jumped completely out of the detent and had jammed the shifter up. It sounds like the same has happened to you since your problem gradually became worse, though I suppose it could be something more serious. It was a reasonably simple repair, and I didn't need a manual - my advice would be to keep it simple by not taking anything apart that isn't obviously broken. On my transaxle, the shifter entered the case at the front of the top of the unit. The part I had to repair is part of the top assembly - I just left all of the gears sitting undisturbed in the bottom half of the case while I fixed the problem in the top half. Once I was finished, I did clean things up a bit and re-lube everything, but I made certain that I put everything back exactly as I found it. It's rather messy but it wasn't too difficult, plus it was certainly better than spending several hundred bucks on a new transaxle. Good luck....
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