About 8 quarts with converter drain.

I let the oil drain in the dipstick tube for at least a minute when I check the fluid. The dipstick seems to "wipe" fluid up the tube when you pull it out, and it's fairly viscous. If you don't wait, it wipes back onto the dipstick and makes it hard to see.

You might also want to take a while paper towel and lay the stick on in to see where the fluid it, it's very hard to see on the dipstick proper.

Low fluid will make it slip, so will low vac to the modulator -- check the vac line at the rear runner on the manifold, and use your mitivac to check that the modulator holds vac.

It's normal to get some flare when downshifting -- it's there to let the engine run up before the lower gear engages to prevent "thrashing" the crank.

Peter

__________________
1972 220D ?? miles
1988 300E 200,012
1987 300D Turbo killed 9/25/07, 275,000 miles
1985 Volvo 740 GLE Turobodiesel 218,000
1972 280 SE 4.5 165, 000 - It runs!