[JamesGarfield]

KButts,

I know you've already fixed the problem on your transaxle, but it sounds very much like the problem mine had. I was mowing along and the tranny locked up solid.

Upon taking it apart I found the reverse gear bushing had seized up on the intermediate shaft.

I get the impression your transaxle is the single-speed F-N-R, yes? If so, it's like the picture below, where you can see how the forward and reverse gears ride on the same intermediate shaft, and are always turning in opposite directions, driven by the input shaft.

What happens is the reverse gear is always spinning at the same speed but in the opposite direction from your forward motion -- so the result is, the reverse gear is spinning backwards at TWICE normal speed. This has the result of placing twice the wear on that reverse gear bushing. Long story short -- what probably happened is that reverse gear locked up due to lack of lube and overheating. In the process of swapping the forward and reverse gears (which are identical as you noticed), you freed the lockup, and re-lubed everything, which makes it all good.

Congrats on a cool repair!