In question is an '83 300SD with an original trany sitting on about 300K miles. My wife was driving home on the highway this evening when an unfortunate "perfect storm" of events happened.

What happened: The belt driving the A/C compressor broke. When it did, instead of dropping out the bottom it decided to go up into the radiator fan and get nicely tangled up. The left over tail of the belt slinging round and round on the fan became an excellent weed-whacker and cut up the lower transmission oil cooler line. Needless to say, all the trany fluid was lost on the HWY(well, allot of it actually painted my engine compartment and underside of my car). My wife of course experienced a loss of power and pulled off the hwy as soon as she could, however, by the time she came to a stop the car didn't go go go anymore.

The repair of the hose and doing a filter change and fill up on the trany are easy. I'm not worried at all about getting it back together. Question/Concern: Does anyone know if this event of sudden fluid loss while driving hwy speeds will damage the trany? Is it somewhat likely? Very likely? Absolutely likely? I'm wondering if I'm wasting my time with a new filter and filling it back up. Take a chance? Or just go ahead and send it to the rebuilders?

You experiences and valued opinions please.

Thank you.

__________________
Cousin Dave
83' 300SD 250k+ and going strong!

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