Hi all,

Over the past two weeks, I've had sometime to work on some nagging issues. I completely drained my transmission (including torque converter), changed the filter and installed a K1 kit. I also refreshed all the major vac tubes on the driver's side of the engine, disabled the EGR, EGT and ARV (no blocking plates yet). And over this weekend, I changed out all the IP seals. Of note, the 2 that were leaking had the wrong size/shaped o-rings. They were flat sided!

Transmission shifts from 1 to 2 is superb in most cases. However, shifts from 2 to 3 is a big problem: the transmission won't let go until around 4,000 rpm and as a result, the turbo is turning at the same time. This is especially bad on long hill climbs. I'm often foot/pedal modulating the shift point

I am going to start trouble shooting the transmission first by following that loooong thread on transmission vacuum and cable adjustments for shifting. I plan to soften the shift firmness a tad, but move up (shorter transitions between gears) the shift points too.

However what concerns me is how fast the turbo is causing the temps to go up. On a particularly long hill climb (3 actually), my temp gauge got above 100C. About 105 if i were to guess. I read that this is normal, but you other OM603 engine'd owners put the fear of God in me about high temps and cracked heads! So is this a sign that something is wrong w/ the turbo? Or will the solution be to fix the transmission shifting points? Or does this also relate to the radiator and clutch/fan? A few times on these hill climbs i turned on and turned off the A/C. As you can imagine, the temps were higher w/ the A/C on and somewhat sluggish.