1987 560SEL 100,000+KM's, transmission takes about 6 seconds to engage in reverse when cold. This gets better as transmission warms up. Also occassionally will not shift from first unless I stop and put car in park then back in drive [warm]. This is rare but reverse when cold is consistant. Will a transmisssion fluid/filter change take care of this or do I likely have a more serious problem? Anybody have any advice, similar problem? Please help.
David

 

Hopefully the filter has clogged over the years, and new oil and filter will resolve the problem; often it will. Clogged with what? clogged with clutch powder coming from the 36-38 little ring clutches inside. The cluthes are padded with a materal similar to the materal on brake pads. The little clutches shed dust similar to brake dust. If the filter gets too clogged the tranny will run hot, and the restriction of flow will slow the hydraulic action.

There are a couple of problems that you should be aware of.

1) If your fluid, is brown and glittery, then your ring cluthes may have lost a substancial amount of the clutch material. The brown glittery presence in the fluid, is in fact similar to brake dust. Similar to brakes that grab a brake rotor, tranny ring cluthesgrab clutch plates that lock gears in place. So if most of the material has been worn away, it will slip and only get worse like bad brakes. And very similar to bad brakes the more you drive them, the more damage occurs. This is beacuse the little cluthes run well when they grab, but when they slip, they heat up, burn, turn blue, warp, shed metal, damage other parts etc, just like bad brakes. So its important to find out right away.
Brown fluid (non-glittery) typically means the tranny hasn't had an oil change in a while, and has a normal amount of dust in it from mileage and use. The brown "glittery" fluid, unfortunately, and in my experience, typically means the clutch material is gone, clutches aremaking metal to metal contact like bad brakes, and it is time for a tranny overhaul. So analyze your tranny fluid.

2) Worst-case, There IS life after a tranny overhaul. Honestly, if you ever do one yourself, you'll never complain about the price again. Some tranny shops boast that they only fix what's broken. And that's really more of a disclaimer than anything. I prefer they replace ALL the clutches and plates, so it doesn't end up back in the shop in one year.

3) If it is slipping, get the filter and the oil changed right away. Slipping alone, can cause a tranny that could have been saved, to go bad if you let it go too long. This would be similar to someone "riding the brakes".The cluthes last longer when firmly engaged.

4) Attached is a picture of a "new" auto-tranny clutch ring. You can see the little pucks on it for grabbing the plate. This is the material that wears off, cloggs your filter, and turns your fluid brown. Even new, you cansee that there's not much material on each plate to start with. So if there is a great amount of this material in your fluid, you know you're approaching an overhaul. I had saved an old set of burned clutches for the book I was writing, but honestly they stunk so badly, I threw them out before I could photograph them.

Blue

 

Here's the pic

[IMG]local://upfiles/10968/1FF7BA8EFAAC4B38946530F3BB4248DC.jpg[/IMG]

 

Thanks so much for your detailed response. Well I checked the transmission fluid and it is red and looks to have no metalic in it. I will change the fluid and filter still?Odd new problem today...today I checked the oil and after about 3 months of driving in this tropical heat it was a litre low on engine oil. Well i added a litre but I messed up and added a litre of caltex delo gold which is for deisel engines!!! I think the oil has a detergent in it check it out online. Well right away I noticed it has white smoke out the tailpipe now if I rev the engine from idle, the second time I rev it no smoke, let it idle a while and rev, smoke again. The car has no loss in power and runs between the 80 and 90 line on the temp gage never all the way to 90. Please help do you think it is the litre of oil I added that is causing this or is it possibly related to the transmission???? This smoke was not there yesterday :-(
Thanks again,
David