Finally finishing my post. I have been driving the car for 7 months now and the transmission is smoother than ever. What I had determined as the cause of the failure was that the brake band b2 had too much slack causing the reaction pin to come out of the reaction valve causing me to loose the associated forward gears. So after replacing the reaction valve and purchasing a longer thrust pin ( Mercedes has about 5 different sizes to account for wear), I put everything back together. New seals, reused all clutches and brake bands, and all is good. I adjusted the vacuum to the modulator to spec and took the car for a drive. Awesome feeling having rebuilt an automatic transmission.