Ryan [ rgnprof ],
I'm glad that others who recognized what your 300D has under the bonnet has picked up on your thread. Actually your tranny's shifting sounds like its all mechanical and actually much simplier than the later models [ many different versions too ] that used vacuum and many different "gizmos" to simulate load/demand and communicate this to the tranny. In a way I wish I had your older mechanical system.

Sidebar Q? - What does yours have for "kickdown" to send a "kick it in the axx" message to the tranny so it will drop back at least one gear?

I'm glad you are in better, more knowledgable hands now... all the luck with your beastie!
Sam // Novato, CA