The 4450SLC my son and I bought, has the three speed automatic. When you shift out of park to say, reverse, the gear doesn't engage. If you push the shift lever back and forth in the Reverse gate it goes into reverse imediately. same with Drive , 2second and 1irst. I am taking it to a Mechanic who has worked on Mercedes and BMW's for 25 years and was trained at a Mercedes Benz dealership. I am having the transmission fluid and filters changed and asked him to do any adjustment that are supposed to be done. I mentioned what the transmission was doing and also the gear lever is loose, wiggles back and forth. Then he said the following about the shifting. " Back in the 70's Mercedes made a safety feature in these 3 speeds. When you shifted into gear, the car wouldn't engage and you had to move the shift lever back within the gear and then forward to the stop and it then engaged. Mercedes thinking was this would prevent the car from going backwards or forwards until the driver was ready. But the dropped the feature in the early 80s as too many owners complained the transmission was faulty". This mechanic is very good and has always fixed my BMW or Mercedes correctly, but he statement seems a bit of a stretch IMHO. SLEEPWALKER, any comments about this "feature." The transmission seems to work fine, no slipping, gear changes are grisp, except for the kickdown, and my mechanic said this is a throttle adjustment and not a problem. Also, he added I should have him check for vacuum leaks, as back in the 70, Mercedes was notorious for vacuum leakes and the car is 26 years old. I have found a couple myself and cover up the OEM vacuum line with rubber vacuum hose and it seems to work.

I have the ACC out and mailed to Proformance Analysis in TENN to have fixed as there is no heat of AC. I tried shorting the aux fan yesterday, but it didn't work. Perhaps I need to wait until we reinstall the ACC? One more question how can I flush the heater box, with the ACC? If I turn on the "heat" will the heater box sensor open so I can flush it out with a hose?