I have an 1981 300D with a 722.118 automatic transmission, just under 188,000 miles. I was wondering if anyone else has ever encountered this problem...

The previous owner stated that when pulling away from a stop one day, she heard a clunk noise and then had no more power being transmitted through the transmission. Moving the gear selector had no effect what so ever so she had it towed to her shop. They told her it was most likely internal damage so she decided to sell the car.

I bought the car from her, checked the car over, and found that the trans fluid was a little dirty but it did not smell burnt and the level was correct. I then took the transmission out of the car, took it apart and this is what I found...http://img849.imageshack.us/i/frontplanetmissingsplin.jpg

So that's why the car wouldn't move! This is the front planet gear assembly and the splines that are stripped out connect to the intermediate shaft.

The intermediate shaft splines look ok so I would like to find just a front planet if at all possible. Does anyone know of any transmission disassemblers that would have something like this? Has anyone else even seen this? Honestly I don't know how an 88hp diesel could rip those splines out, unless the previous owner was doing full throttle neutral drops!

At any rate I will take the transmission apart to clean the metal out of it and check the rest of it over. If anyone has any experience with this type of failure, your input would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

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