[Tommy]

I don't offer this as a diagnosis of your problem, but food for thought. I started having intermittant problems shifting my Richmond 5 speed. It would sometimes be hard to put into first at a stop sign, and sometimes the shifter was hard to move in 3rd/4th. I pulled the shifter and found a small piece of steel debris that occasionally restricted movement of the shifter rails. With the debris removed, it works great.