<<"In the early '90s Mercedes saw the error of their ways and allowed the gas 
transmissions to start in 1st. Cars built a year or two before 1st gear 
starts became standard COULD be converted (it was NOT a cheap conversion - 
required 
that the valve body be removed and some pieces replaced) but cars with 
transmissions build before that (about '89 and earlier I think) can't be 
converted 
(you'd need a completely replace the valve body).">>

If I had any personal archives, I could exhume a post I made more than ten 
years back on this subject but I don't, so I won't. Paraphrasing, when I was 
driving my '89 190E 2.6 and my friend SJB got his new '91 300E with 1st gear 
start and I drove it, I was hot to add that feature to my '89. So, after 
repeated 
talks with one of the two MB reps in my area, one of them called Montvale, in 
my presence, and asked what could be done. The answer was that they had 
converted several company cars and the fix was to remove the little spring from 
behind the kickdown piston. Soon after, the shop foreman, with me watching, 
removed the valve body (a few fasteners), removed one of the cheesehead screws 
from 
the end of it (they are numbered) and out dropped a little piston followed by 
the spring in question. Reassemble in reverse order. After a careful 
adjustment of the trans cable (or was it a rod?) I had first gear start. What a 
difference!

I carried that little spring in a zip-loc bag in the car for a few years 
until I traded it of in '95.

Probably cost about $150 including the fluid change.

RLE 

Reply via email to