I worked with him on this.
We did not remove the governer, only the secondary pump that engages the square drive peg on the end of the governer shaft.

I have just looked thru both the ATSG PDF and a Mercedes factory PDF, and nowhere is there a mention of lining up the pump and governer drive. In fact the way it is set up, the drive gear is spring-loaded, as as soon as the governer rotates it would engage.
This is NOT like the front pump/TC setup, that MUST be correctly positioned.

One thing I did spot that we may have missed, is that there is a small threaded shaft called the "Axial Support" that passes thru the secondary pump, and is secured with a nut. The end of this shaft has a small slot in the end, and in one of the manuals(which I just found) it mentions making sure that the slot is horizontal... There is only about 45deg or less movement in this shaft, and its slot, and horizontal is at its maximum clockwise position.

Whilst tightening the nut would rotate the shaft to its stop position... which would be horizontal, I am unsure where we set it, as I only just fornd that info...
Anyone know what the Axial Support does?

I am also concerned about a failure of the Kickdown Solenoid...
Anyone know if it fails in the open position, and what the result would be?

What I find odd, is the way this problem manifested itself... The drive was uneventful, and almost 300 miles long before he slowed down, and only then did the trans start acting up...

__________________
2009 Mercedes ML320 Bluetec