Babelfish at Altavista will translate German websites for you. I use it all the time for German ebay and
www.mobile.de.
I owned a right hand drive Mercedes 307d (a van) and I don't think there was any difference at all in the transmission and linkages. I would think the driveshaft changes can be fairly easily accomplished here rather than paying for the shipping of a driveshaft from Europe. There are lots of Mercedes 'breakers' in the UK that should be able to provide you with parts. I have a couple of links to some if you are interested. One is called MercMan. I found them quite helpful when looking for parts for my 409d.
Kerry