Just purchased a 76 280E auto. Car is in great shape except that the auto box is rather noisy (moans) in lower gears and on a light throttle the upchanges take forever. It seems ok when accelerating fairly hard. Is this symptomatic of a failing gearbox? Can the box be adjusted/serviced reasonably? Most grateful for any assistance or comments Jim Shelton
I once owned a '79 280E and it too made some noises. Never knew why.
You can check the shift points by releasing the throttle pressure rod (on the top rear of the engine) that runs down to the right side of the transmission. Pop it off its ball on the throttle linkage. Gently pull it and allow it to return to its "natural" position. That should put the socket on the end on that rod to a position so that it can be reattached to the throttle linkage WITHOUT pulling or pushing the rod. Adjust the rod's length to make it do so and the transmission will shift more appropriately.
Know that shifts are intentionally delayed when the engine is cold - that's to speed its warm-up.
Incidentally, I had to adjust mine, since I had no kick down. It seemed that full throttle could not pull the rod hard enough to get the tranny lever you describe to the kick down region. Yet on first inspection, everything seemed in order. I discovered that the problem was that there simply wasn't enough throttle linkage travel, because someone (before my time) had adjusted the throttle (cable) in my case to tighten it up and effectively shortened the cable. I simply had to relax this adjustment, to effectievly give me a little more actual pedal travel to WOT. I then had to adjust the rod as you say Tom, to get it all back in sync. One point, during my tinkerings, I took it upon my self to adjust this linkage anyway. I was amazed at how a small adjustment can push the change points up the speed range. I had it at one point only going into top at 50mph, even at light throttle. Thought I'd broke the thing. Anyway, when I found the extra pedal travel, I sorted it all out fine.
Just for info.
Cheers... Rob.
"T.G. Lambach" wrote:
MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.