Hello,
My mothers got a 350SL with one of the original 4speed automatics. The auto on her car has been rebuilt 2x and its still got the same problem of missing the gear alot when it down shifts from 3rd to 2nd in slow corners leaving her with reving the engine and the car going no where for like 5 seconds till it finally finds the gear.

To solve this problem we are looking at swapping the auto out and replacing it with one of the later 4speeds from the Alloy engines, 380, 500 and 560 etc. My local indy gave me a fairly cheap quote to do the job but stated that i could not use the 4speed auto and would only be able to use the 3speeds designed for the iron block engines. Is this true, i have always assumed they were interchangable? Has anyone done the swap or know of a forum thread that describes it?

Thanks for any help

I'm not sure if this is true but I did here a rumor that the later 3 speeds became 4 speeds with the change of a valve body. Since you apparently have a 4 speed VB this might be worth looking into further.

__________________
To see my 129 parts for sale visit:
http://stores.ebay.com/The-Mercedes-SL-Store
John Roncallo

It is true. The bolt pattern on the block is not the same. What Roncallo says is also true. Same three speed for US market were four speed in Australia.

true, i know it from the old 6.9 s-class

__________________
Jay,
-----------------
-1995 Blue W202 C36 AMG (M) SOLD ;(
-1995 Black W140 S500 (Lady)
-1992 Black W124 E300 (Dima) (Ex-Mosselman
Twin turbo Kit).
-1988 Black W124 300 E 4-Matic.(Nadeen)
-1983 Brown W126 500SEL.(Old Lady)(Sold)
-1981 Gold W123 280CE.(Dareen)(Sold)
http://www.youtube.com/user/jayrasheed

Thanks for the replies. Its for the mother so having it abit slow on take off is not going to be a problem