Dear Group,
I'm glad to find a group of knowledgeable people regarding these great cars. Mine is a 1991 300SL with about 70K miles. I've had it about 8 months, put about 2K on it. Yesterday I drove it and it wouldn't shift out of low gear. I read some previous posts, but nothing exactly like my situation. The fluid level is good, fluid looks and smells good, no leaks and I couldn't see any problems with linkage, vacuum leaks and so forth. Reverse works fine and there doesn't appear to be any slippage or any odd noise. It just won't shift. The motor runs great. I went to a higher rpm than should be required and tried "pumping" the pedal a little, but I don't want to make things any worse. I plan on calling and getting it towed to a place tomorrow. It's not the dealer, it's an independant, they've done a little work on it but just service oriented. I'm not kidding myself into thinking I can repair it, but I would like to get some idea of what they're going to have to say. Is it some external switch or circuitry or something internal? Any ideas would be great and if you have a rough idea of what it should take to do it ($$), I sure would appreciate it. I have ordered the workshop manual CD from Manuals Unlimited and am hoping for the best on that (as far as being able to navigate through it and use it). I'll post what turns up when I get some kind of diagnosis and estimate. Thanks in advance for your input and information.
MIke

 

Mike,

I had a '91 300SL also. Mine lost 5th gear which I found was a common problem. I couldn't find anyone to fix it here in town since it's a hybrid with 1st through 4th gears being hydraulically operated and 5 gear being electrically operated. Warranty company had me take it to the dealer which was a BIG mistake. They took it apart and after 2 months of them screwing around trying to put it back together, I had them load all of the parts on a pallet in boxes and shipped it to Adsit (http://www.adsitco.com). They had it back together in a week for $2200 including a new torque converter and a 2 year warranty. This was 2 years ago, I'm not sure what their price is now. I have a new rebuilt torque converter for sale if someone needs it-the warranty company bought it before I sent it to Adsit so I kept it.

What kind of ChrisCraft have you got? I had an '84 312 Stinger that I sure wish I still had. I sold it to get the '89 39' Mainship Mediterranean express I have now. We hope to sell it in the spring so we can make the move to a 406 Carver aft cabin.

Dennis

Mercedes hydraulic cylinders rebuilt for $30 each + $10 total shipping. 3 year warranty on seals replaced.
mercedescylinders@sbcglobal.net

 

i have done a lot of work on these 722.5 transmissions. it sounds a lot like you have a governor pressure problem you would need to have a set of gauges hooked up to it to tell for sure. most of the time it is the governor that is not allowing it to shift lots of time they like to stick

 

Sorry to be so long in posting a reply. The independent repair shop directed me to a transmission shop that works on all types of equipment, including race cars and boats. The problem was that the torque converter was coming apart and the metal filings accumulated in the shift control selenoid magnets therefore it couldn't shift. The whole deal was just under 3k, torque converter, clean out the system and rebuild the transmission. There was also a bad flex disk and broken transmission mount which I think may have caused the problem to start with. The car did have some vibration, but I attributed it to tires, which were also bad. So, new tires, rebuilt tranny and associated hardware and it's driving again. Except now the evaporator is leaking so there's no A/C here in Louisiana. Dennis rebuilt most of the top hydraulic cylinders and did a great job, so I can get a little air blowing except when it rains.
By the way, the Chris Craft is a 1967 31' Commander Sports Express, FSA-31-0015, number 15 made - still in the project mode. It originally came with 2 - Ford 427 side oilers but now has Volvo Penta SBC 350's. My last restoration project...
Thanks for the replys and Dennis' great work on the hydraulics.
Mike

 

the whole dash has to come out to replace the evaporator as you probably know. If you plan on keeping her you might as well replaced the heater core while you're in there. don't want to have to go in there again anytime soon.

 

Famous last words.
"While you're there...."
Great forum, very interesting reading

Mike