I've just finished replacing the torque arm bushings and doughnuts. All done, but that's another story....Whew!!!
So while I had the car up on jack stands, decided to tackle 3 other jobs which I've been wanting to do for some time.
I started with the
transmission mount- all very straightforward.
First supported the transmission with a trolley jack and a block of wood under the width of the pan.
In order to remove the metal support plate and get to the bolts on the right, I had to remove the heat shield from the exhaust. To do this I unhooked the central rubber exhaust mounts, undid the 4 screws on the heat shield and then swivelled the heat shield around and out.
Removed the metal supporting plate, and rubber bellows and found that the mount had some cracks in the rubber and was partially collapsed -see pics below.
Undid the old mount, installed the new mount, fitted the rubber protection bellows and bolted everything back up again.
Transmission Fluid & Filter: I then removed the jack from under the pan, and proceeded to drain transmission fluid out of the pan and torque converter.
I followed WRe's excellent instructions here:
http://www.sl113.org/forums/index.php?topic=23805.msg170395#msg170395Unbolted the pan, replaced the filter. This is all a really messy exercise, despite having drain pans in place under the car the fluid just goes all over the floor.
I noticed that the old filter didn't have the U-shaped rubber in place, the new one did have the rubber -see pics below.
Cleaned out the pan, replaced the cork gasket on the pan and hand tightened the pan bolts with a small ratchet, make sure not to over tighten these bolts when closing up the pan; no more seepage or leaking from there.
Note: The Mercedes Benz replacement filter comes with aluminium crush washers, which I found were useless as I had fluid seeping out of the sump drain bolt. I replaced these with copper crush washers which I keep on hand and no leaks/seepage thereafter.
Refilled with fresh ATF fluid via the dipstick and topped up as the car warmed up, taking care not to overfill. I noticed that it takes a very long time for the Xmission fluid to reach operating temperature. In fact I took the car for a 15km drive before the fluid warmed up and to get the fluid level finally settled.
The upshot of all of this, (most probably due to the new xmission mount), is that suddenly the automatic gear changes are unbelievably smooth and barely noticeable, whereas before I felt a moderate kick in the backside with each change.
Best,
Mike
