Rather than tear it all apart to get to the pods that are buried, just access the five control solenoids that are located behind the climate control unit in the console, above the radio. You may also need to remove the switch panel above the climate control. Each solenoid has a common line from the vacuum source and a line to one of the pods.

With the solenoid valves exposed, start the engine and run the a/c. Confirm that the engine shutoff is still delayed as you described in your first post. Now disconnect each solenoid in turn until you find one that restores the engine shut-off time to normal. The leak is in that line. (It's possible there is more than one leak, which will take more work, but you see what to do.)

To disconnect each solenoid you can either pinch or remove each vacuum line. If you remove a line, be sure to close off the vacuum source line so you aren't creating a leak even worse than the one you are trying to fix.

Once you have found the one that's leaking, figure out which pod has the leak. If you don't have a manual, re-post with information on which one leaks (number the solenoids #1--#5 from left to right) and we can tell you. Knowing which pod leaks will also tell you how much work it is to access that pod.

Depending on the difficulty to replace that pod, you may choose to seal off the vacuum line and ignore the problem for now. I did that with my '85 300D-T and eventually fixed it when I replaced my badly cracked dash.

Jeremy

__________________

"Buster" in the '95

Our all-Diesel family
1996 E300D (W210) . .338,000 miles Wife's car
2005 E320 CDI . . 113,000 miles My car
Santa Rosa population 176,762 (2022)
Total. . . . . . . . . . . . 627,762
"Oh lord won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz."
-- Janis Joplin, October 1, 1970

It might be easier to select the OFF mode for the climate control before turning the key off. (If a slightly delayed shut-down is the only issue.)