Hello all, first post. After lusting over the W114 250c for 20 years, I finally bought one from a little old man who had kept it in his garage, more or less, for the past 35 years. Great shape but needs lots of updating. In the process of installing a new Weber dual carburetor kit (the Zenith carbs were the the reason the car was almost never driven according to the old man - he gave up trying to make them work) I found a small piece of linkage lying on the garage floor after putting everything back together. I had not removed this piece. Coincidentally, the 3 speed column shift automatic is now very difficult to shift into gear and even makes an unnerving grinding noise as it goes into 'Park'. I have not driven the car at all since the loss of this piece and am terrified to do so. I have the factory manual that shows the exploded parts diagram and this appears to be a linkage piece for the shifter somewhere right around the firewall but I absolutely cannot see where it goes. Am I correct? Does anyone else recognize this linkage or the symptoms I've described?

Thanks very much for any assistance you can lend!

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