Over the past couple of months it has become increasingly difficult to shift into first gear. There's no grinding involved and it feels more like it's the shifting mechanism itself, maybe the clutch, but not the transmission. So today the entire shift knob broke off when I was putting it in first gear at a stoplight. I was able to put the knob back on the shifter, but the 5th gear is no longer available, which is a problem since I have a 30min. freeway commute to work. I was wondering if anyone else has had a similar problem with a difficult first gear (I swear I have muscle tone on my left arm since this problem creeped up) and what the probable causes might be. Since it's Saturday afternoon, there's not a repair shop open that I could get an estimate from or to determine the cause. I was hoping to get some idea of the magnitude of this problem. There's no problem in getting a new gear shifter, complete with the 5th gear button, but the hard shift is where the real problem is and a new shifter would probably end up in this same situation down the road due to the physical stress of almost forcing it into gear. Thanks so much if anyone has advice to offer.

87 740 GLE 2.8L 225000 miles.