I recently had to change the engine ( and I kept the tranny attached when I pulled it on of my TD wagons. I had a spare engine from a previous parts car that I finally junked. I'm a little mixed up and can't remember for sure, but I think that I tried to use the tranny that I pulled with my damaged engine rather than use the old one that had been sitting around gathering dust and drying out for several years.
I am a DIY but do my own mechanic work due to the fact that I live on a very small Island with no mechanic that really has any experience working on Mercedes and due to a small cash flow. This was my first attempt at swapping an engine. Everything seemed to go ok but I do remember that my friend who was helping me and I had a hard time mating the tranny and engine together.
I should say at this point that when I pulled both the engine from the parts car and the damaged engine from my driver I was not aware
that I should have removed the bolts holding the torque converter to the flywheel and so they both stayed with the engine
...
the engine went in ok and everything worked ok for about a week. Then suddenly it wouldn't engage in any gear when I tried to move the shifter.
I did have some trouble getting the engine and tranny to mate together and somebody told me that I probably cracked the gear on the tranny oil pump and that this is causing the current situation.
This whole downward spiral among other things is bumming me out an making me depressed.
HELP !!!
1) does this sound like the reasonable/probable diagnosis?
a) are there things I can check to confirm this prior to pulling the tranny
and tearing into it?
2) how hard/ complicated is it to replace the pump on one of these
trannies for a low/moderate level DIY like me ?
3) Where is the model number of the tranny located? I have spent literally several hours hunting for it and have even reached the point of disconnecting the drive shaft and dropping the tranny down part way to try to find it. Since I am confused about which tranny I put in, I am not even sure what year car it came from. ( I do know that the engine does not match with the wiring harness on the car but I assume that this is not the problem since everything worked ok for a week... ??? )
I have considered biting the bullet and selling my second child and ordering a rebuilt tranny from Sun Valley ( I hear that they are really
good ) for $1800.00 including shipping but they want all the model numbers and I can't find the one for the tranny and once I heard the oil pump theory I figured maybe I should check that out before springing for a rebuilt with money I don't really have sitting around extra.
Any Advice would be warmly appreciated. Any information on what I would need for parts, where to get them and/or instructions would be helpful as well as insight on how complicated this is would be awesome. I still have this other 'spare ' tranny so I thought I might be able to rob the oil pump off of it. Would love thoughts about the wisdom of this as well. I assume I would need to get a gasket kit. Also wanted suggestions about anything else in terms of preventative maintenance I might be able to do at my skill level while I hypothetically have the tranny opened up.
And if there is anyone with a higher skill / experience level that wants to come to Hawaii and stay in our vacation apartment as a barter while showing and helping me how to do the job private message me and maybe we can work something out as well...
Thanks so much in advance!
With Aloha I humbly bow before the transmission gods.
Levie Yamazaki-Gray,
Moloka'i Hawaii