I just dropped the transmission pan on my 95 E320 Wagon and found a fairly nasty surprise (see below). Unfortunately whomever had the car before me managed to strip both the drain bolts for the pan and torque converter so it ended up being a partial fluid change. It shifts somewhat hard (small but perceptable bump) but doesn't slip any. The car has other issues and I would prefer not to dump an absurd amount of money into it and if the transmission isn't long for this world it may be better to cut my losses. What do you guys think?
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How much glitter is too much?
- Thread starter Nfernandez18379
- Start date
The car has 208k miles on it and the transmission was rebuilt at 130k in 2013. I should have included that in the initial post.
Does not seem too excessive in my humble opinion. If you have no slip or flare when shifting that's good. Relatively firm shifts are somewhat of a feature of older Benz transmissions especially if you compare to US cars of same era. Especially the 1-2 shift should be quite firm but not neck snapping of course. For sure change the filter and use good quality ATF to top back up. I prefer Mann brand filters over any other brand. As long as you have no large metal flake and bits of metal in the pan I'd say you're likely fine just to keep on trucking but keep a close eye on your fill level. Benz transmissions can be tricky to fill just right and they don't like to be at all over or under filled.
From those photos it looks normal. There is always a fine film of silver swarf. If the transmission is shifting normally, you likely have nothing to worry about. If you can scoop it out with a spoon, that would be bad.
Assuming you meant the hex socket head was stripped in both drain plugs, order new ones, and use an appropriate size Torx driver, or bolt extractor, to get the drain plugs removed. After a complete fluid drain, install the new drain plugs with new seal rings.
Assuming you meant the hex socket head was stripped in both drain plugs, order new ones, and use an appropriate size Torx driver, or bolt extractor, to get the drain plugs removed. After a complete fluid drain, install the new drain plugs with new seal rings.
Weirdly the 1-2 is almost imperceptible. 2-3 and 3-4 do have a little bump. Right now it was Dex/Merc vavoline which is Dex 3 compliant in it but I'm gonna put a couple miles on it and and do another drain and fill with Vavoline Maxlife just so I've diluted the residual fluid.
Replace the damaged drain plugs so you can remove 100% of the old fluid. It will take a half-dozen partial drains & refills to fully remove the old fluid otherwise. New drain plugs are cheap.
Both of them are completely rounded out. I'm less concerned with the payon one because I can just remove that and drill it out if need be. The torque converter on the other hand pose as a much more significant issue sould it remain stuck.Replace the damaged drain plugs so you can remove 100% of the old fluid. It will take a half-dozen partial drains & refills to fully remove the old fluid otherwise. New drain plugs are cheap.
Both of them are completely rounded out. I'm less concerned with the pan one because I can just remove that and drill it out if need be. The torque converter on the other hand pose as a much more significant issue should it remain stuck.*
Voice to text will be my enemy until the day I die.
It goes in to reverse almost instantly. Reverse to drive takes a second or two and is usually accompanied by a bump.
