Originally Posted by crhenkel

cs,
first of all....sit down and breathe for a minute. or two. Nothing done cant be undone. It is alright.
You look like you broke the two nipples off the thermo vacuum switch. Not a big deal. They were likely cracked already. It is less than a $30 part online, maybe $40 - 45 at the dealer. Might be difficult to get it out of the manifold, they like to sit in there tight since they are two diff types of metal. Without the nipples on it though , it will be easy to get a socket on it and not have to worry about breaking them off...
I think the car should run without it connected. You might need to cut a piece of rubber vac hose and connect the two liines that went to the thermo vac switch together. What the switch does is it waits until the engine hits 50 celcuis and then it either opens or closes the vac line, dont remember which. It is to help the car run better until it is warmed up. In any case, either cold or hot the two lines make an open loop at one of the times, so if you block both off or conect both together, you will get either a cold engine or hot engine situation and the car should run in either. Just amybe not as efficiently.
I think I might get all the old wires back on correctly, either block both or connect both the vac lines to the thermo vac switch and try starting the car. Get is running and take it to the shop to have them replace the switch and do the plugs and wires. not an expensive job I would think.
Dont put yourself down too much, it happens and not much to do but learn from it. MB plastic is brittle over time and often breaks, I have had it happen myself. They didnt use the addatives in the plastic back then that lets it stand up to the UV rays and heat and time like they do now.