722.1 transmission starts in which gear? ATSG conflicts with itself.
 

Hi-
I have a 1968 220D W115 which I believe has a 722.1 transmission (according to EPC). I believe my car used to start in second gear from a stop, but recently it started having trouble deciding whether to start in first or second gear. It sort of bounces between the two during an acceleration, which cannot be right. It does the same thing regardless of which "gear" you have selected on the shift knob (column shifter if it matters). It really got my attention when trying to put the car onto ramps for maintenance. It was a little scary because it wouldn't accelerate at all up the ramps, and then would find one of the gears and suddenly lurch up the stands (and almost off them). I guess on some level, I am worried I am losing the lower gears of my transmission.

A transmission fluid change will happen soon, but before I do that, I want to get all the throttle/tranny linkages adjusted correctly. For a normal (non-floored) acceleration, is my car supposed to start in 1st gear or 2nd?

Thanks to Diesel911, I recently picked up a copy of the ATSG guide for my transmission. Strangely enough, it has conflicting information about this very topic. On one page, it suggests that my car should start in 1st (the 220d/8 column). And two pages later it says the opposite (the 115.110 column). I have attached the pages in case anyone can help me figure it out. Any thoughts? Previous threads on the topic seem to disagree about this as well. Thanks.

There was some discussion on the first vs. second gear start issue some months back, for those transmissions.

Where you are at, is exactly where the discussion got to.

I have had two cars with that transmission (one a .117 and one a .118), and both started/start in first from a dead stop.

If I even so much as gently creep through a stop sign, for example, then my car with the .117 stays in second and accelerates from there.

Another forum member said his starts in second all the time.

I have a hard time imagining that Mercedes would have had four-cylinder diesels starting in second gear (these transmissions were widely used in 240d).

First step - crawl under the car and get the transmission type. 722.1 isn't enough to answer this question. I can look up specifics in the German language version of the FSM if required but only if you have the last two Xes => 722.1XX

The "B" file is correct (is for post '73 models).

:)