"Check your throttle and/or sh
"Check your throttle and/or shift cable for kinks. They will usually occur right where they come out of the engine and get kinked when the motor gets tilted up too much or something falls on them. A kinked or broken throttle cable can cause hard shifting and vise versa.
If they are not kinked, they could be corroded or broken.
Disconnect both of them at the engine (should be one pin holding each one. Don't lose the washers on the posts.) Then test to see how hard the shifting is. If there is still difficulty, it is probably in the cables. To know for sure, you have to then disconnect them from the shifter and check the ease of slide of each cable when totally disconnected. If one is bad, replace them both while you are at it, you have already have everything apart and it will not take any more time to replace the second one."