You guys are gonna love this one....

I appreciate any advice, Steve-o, and I never take umbrage when helpful people ask me questions to which I may already know the answer. And it was more careful examination of the "most likely cause" scenario that you were asking about that lead to the solution here.

So my brake fluid resevoir was full to the top, and that was indeed the first thing I checked a week ago. So in prep to really get in there and diagnose the problem, I rechecked the resevoir- still full. But I was bothered by the fact that I couldn't see the fluid level in the clutch resevoir and had to assume it was full without verifying. So expecting to get messy, I cracked the line off the bottom of the clutch resevoir so I could just make sure there was fluid in there, and lo and behold, exactly squat came out of the resevoir and the line was bone dry! Eureka- made me feel stupid, but at least it was going to be an easy fix.

So now you're thinking either "what a dork" or "how was it that the clutch resevoir was dry when the brake resevoir was full? They're connected." Both thoughts that occurred to me immediately, too. So I take a look at the nipple onto which the clutch fluid line attaches, and I'm greeted by... a solid piece of plastic, factory sealed! And then it all comes back to me.....

When I bought the car and was preparing to drive it acorss country, I had to redo pretty much the entire break system, which included replacing the fluid resevoir. Got a new dry one from some boneyard, yanked off the old one, put the new one on, replaced the clutch fluid line on the nipple, then filled with fluid. Hunky-dory, everything works fine.

Until I start having the shifting issues 8 months later, whereupon it occurs to me that the new brake fluid resevoir (which I'd completely forgotten I'd swapped out) almost certainly came off a Benz with an automatic transmission that had no need of clutch fluid. Apparently for some models, Mercedes decided to use the same brake fluid resevoir (i.e., with attached clutch fluid resevoir) for both manual and automatic trans models, but just didn't slice off the end of the plastic clutch fluid nipple for automatics. So assuming that my clutch fluid resevoir was attached to my clutch master cylinder, I've been driving this thing for 8 months with the 8 tablespoons of brake fluid that was left in the line between the resevoir and the master cylinder, and it took those 8 months for the car to develop severe shifting problems.

I sliced off the nipple with a dremel cut-off wheel whereupon the full resevoir began to drain into the line, and voila! the car immediately shifts like I just drove it off the lot. Didn't even have to bleed the lines! Just hope I didn't grind anything important off the transmission in the last week....

Thanks for the suggestions, all of you who offered advice- the MS forum rocks.

randy