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Hello fellow enthusiasts,
My name is jed. I live in the Detroit suburbs and I’ve been a Mercedes enthusiast for many years now. I have some history with W116, W108, W109 but just a picked up my first W111. A 66 250se coupe.
I found it locally through a broker who was selling it on the behalf of an estate from an elderly gentleman who is in failing health. Best I can tell the car hasn’t run in about 12 years and I bought it as a non-running vehicle. It appears fairly original and complete. During the first few weeks I did a major tuneup, overhauled entire brake system including two siezed calipers, replacing the shocks, flushing the fuel system and replacing all the ribber fuel lines I got the car running. It’s actually been running very well. Replaced some shift linkage bushings in the steering column for the automatic transmission which made a world of difference as the old ones had literally disintegrated. For my latest problem I’ve hit a brick wall.
I’m currently stumped on my frozen linkage on the transmission pressure modulator. I’ve had the classic hard shifts particularly when slowing down and after reading every possible post I could find on this topic I discovered that the linkage was seized. The 3 position solenoid is working however the linkage arm coming out of the transmission modulator is stuck. I’ve been spraying it with PB blaster for about 10 days with no success. I have tried to manhandle the linkage back-and-forth with some vice grips and it will not budge. I got to the point where I was bending the linkage arm so I backed off and straightened up the arm. I went so far as to partially remove the modulator down in the tunnel with the hopes that I could see the internals but I can’t get to them with the brown/black plastic intermediate plate in the way. I am stumped! I’m not sure what to do next. I have tried tapping on the arm with a light punch and mallet and again instead of the arm moving i found myself bending the arm. Short of removing the transmission so that I could properly access the passenger side of the transmission (even then i am not sure what i will do) are there any other options? I have read many posts about these linkage arms freezing up but only a couple posts about how to free it up with a lot of elbow grease and lube which has not worked for me. Surprisingly there’s very little corrosion on the exterior of the transmission so I’m wondering if perhaps there’s not something internally wrong that’s locked the linkage? I have the vehicle service manual but it really is quite limited on any transmission internals so i don’t really know what i would be dealing with internally.
Anyway sorry for the crazy long post and thanks in advance for any ideas on freeing up this pressure modulator linkage!! Ive attached a pic of the car on its way to its new home.
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