Transmission follies

Der Klunker (1981 300SD) continues to earn his name.

Drove into the driveway of our apartmnent house in Manhattan. Switched off. Unloaded groceries. Switched on. Car would not move. Jigggled the gear shift lever a little bit and it detached itself from the transmission. Car is locked in Park and cannot be moved. Thank God we were in the driveway and not on the street, or worse.

Called road service, which sent over a tow truck in a remarkably short time. He tried to jiggle the tranny out of Park but with no success. So he attached the truck to the rear of the car and lifted the rear wheels off the ground so he could tow the car. About one block to a garage which I had already warned to be ready for us.

While we blocked all traffice on Manhattan's Upper East Side. the tow truck lifted the car high so the garage owner could get under it with a flashlight and screwdriver and promptly unlocked the tranny. Lowered car to street and half a dozen people pushed it into the garage, which is mid-block between two avenues. "You'll have it later today or tomorrow," said the owner.

Well, no. MB sent the wrong part and is having trouble finding the right part. But I needed the car and the garage did not need to be pushing it all over the place to keep up with parking restrictions and regulations. "You can move it," said the garage owner, a Limerick man with a brogue you could cut with a knife.

They had taken the top off the console and moved the useless shift lever out of the way, then attached a visegrip wrench to the tranny activatror, which is a solid rod on top of the tranny. With the wrench solidly in place one can shift the transmission from Park to Reverse to Neutral to Drive and Second but not Low. "If you drop it to Low you won't be able to get it out of Low and the tranny will be locked" he said.

I drove it all weekend and this morning with no trouble using great care when shifting. Indeed, should I just pay him for the visegrip wrench and be done with it? :)

Lovely to see such ingenuity. The car is clearly in good hands.

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Gogarty
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