Hi Revs before tranny kicks in & hard to put in reverseW123

[sun tortise]

Finally got the linkage sorted out, on my 1985 300D, and have all the gears, tho it is hard to shift from neutral to reverse. It will easily go from park to reverse however.

I read several threads about hard to put in reverse, could be something internal, but wondering why it goes into reverse just fine from park.

No matter what gear, the tranny will not kick in without a relatively high RPM compared to other 300D's i've driven. And sometimes makes a whirring noise until it does kick in. Once it kicks in it drives fairly well on the road. I drained the fluid, it was pretty clean, & put a new filter and gasket on the pan. There is an intermittent trans fluid leak believed to be in the tubing from the tranny to the cooler. So i never know if the fluid level is right, but just read several threads on that and will check it again in the morning.

Is there an adjustment for how high it needs to rev, or is the tranny "toast"?

Unknown mileage due to odometer that stopped at 164K before i bought the car.

Thanks in advance,this forum has been so helpful on many issues.