300D trans wont leave 1.st & other crap

[Larry Delor]

Hello y'all!

Looking for some input. Yesterday I drove about 500mi roundtrip to look at an '82 300D for $1800. The price sounded good, so I got a relative to go with me. I asked the guy not to start it till I got there so I could see/hear for myself. Well,...by the time I got there the engine was warm, bordering on hot. (oh well) I eyeballed the engine saw a new vacuum swith on top of the valve cover. When I turned the key and looked for the glowplug light, there was none. (maybe burnt bulb I thought) It cranked over 3 to 5 seconds and started. Not the smoothest, but not bad for a 300. I was told the A/C was cold...HAH! Hotter-n-hell...although most of the heat was coming out of the side vents, and the tach didn't work either. ( So I think, I had this happen on my 83 and it was a fuse) eyeballed fuses, wiggled them around...no change. Well "poop" I thought...I can get over that and fix it later, since the compressor did engage, so at least some action was going on. I got back in the car...wanted to roll down the windows....NOT! none of 'em would budge. (grrrr) So I settled for the sunroof, which was actually the smoothest operating 123 sunroof I have ever seen. Anyway, I idled up to the street, hung a right and stepped on it...good,.. good,.. accelerating briskly,.. ("turbo seems to be working")... approaching what sounded like 3k rpm...hey, where the hell is second gear???? So I turned into the next street and cussed. Reverse worked (thank god)...maybe I imagined this...maybe I forgot where to put the gear selector...I double checked, going from N to D slowly. Got back on the street and was glad to get back into the place where I got it from. After getting honked at because the left hand turnsignal didn't work.
I was not happy, even if I could have overlooked the a/c and the windows and the tach and the turnsignal and the glowplugs, having decent tires and a well functioning sunroof was not going to get me back to my coast if I couldn't get out of first friggin gear!! (Grrr)
Why was I going to buy this? I was either going to swap engines with my '83 or use the '82 and swap interiors with my '83. For $1800 I thought it would be worth it, plus I would have a decent carcass left over. (hmmm when I think about the '82 and I see the word carcass, I actually see car-c-ass)

However I am willing to reconsider if the consensus is that these problems are superficial and a reasonable easy fix. (could the trans prob. be the B2 piston?)
thanks for your time!
-Larry

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03/83 300D 184k
07/73 280 160k
-88 other 153k