If it were my car, I would do what G-AMG says, would put new ATF.

 

I'm agree with G-AMG. .I wouldn't reuse old ATF. Some stores have NEW "Spec" fluid for less then $10/liter. Drain it, measure all amount and drop old ATF to local recycling center.

 

i have a 1997 c280 that has the hard to shift from 1 to 2 when cold etc. does smooth out after shifted a few times, but still harder than i would think a mercedes would shift. Are all these parts the same part numbers etc. for the 1997 c280 as they are for the 320's. its the 5 speed auto transmission etc. Thanks for any info on a 280 with same stuff.

 

good info here...want to do this on my sons c230 with 722.6 tranny......hard shifts 2..3rd.
question: should i just do it without reading codes first and after conductor plate replacement have the codes read and reset at the same time?

 

i have just done it...seems to shift better from a short test drive......do i need to get codes checked and erased????

 

Sorry to arrtive late at the party.

You did a conductor plate replacement ? And you replaced the tranny fluid, right ? Did you replace the connector plug as well ? I am not clear what was and wasn't doen with your son's car.

Afdter you did whatever you did and didn't do - did you do the ECU/tranny reset procedure, sometime called the "soft reset" as recommended by G-man ?

Do a forum search, follow the proper procedure for this 4 minute process, then drive the car.

Report back after you have gotten that taken care of and tell us what happened.

 

did all of the above....thanks for response....
any suggestions of what else to do...
thanks

 

any suggestions?
thanks

 

You do not have to remove the so called conductor plate to install the new or revised connector pilot bushing. Just make sure you have drained enough fluid before you remove the old pilot bushing.

The spring or springs you reference are apart of the transmission shifter plate, with four sided fastened covers, that will be exposed when you drop the pan and filter. You better know what you are doing when you access the valve plate-----what side ------what location------what spring---and cleanliness is next to Godliness or you will have a mess on your hands.

 

Hoping you could point me in the direction of who you got your Star 3 from.

There are a lot of them out there- just want to buy from someone that has a good product, with no issues.

Did you get your with the laptop shown? How much did you pay?

Thanks-

 

parts.com has the electics kit for 172.00
autohauzaz has it for 178.12
ebay has it for around 150.00
Peachparts has it for 159.00

Would there be a recommendation on one of these places that would be better than the others to work with? Thanks.

Edit: Could a bad conductor plate cause the instrument cluster to work improperly as well? I was planning on replacing the cluster as well but maybe the two issues are from the same problem.

 

Wel...

The eBay listing for $165 w/shipping by buyautoparts is legitimate - they are slightly smaller scale that autohausaz, but that saves you $13.

Make sure you get a fresh connector plug too while you are in there..

Good luck !

 

One bit of advice on the Plug Bushing...

I recently made the ?mistake? of buying one from Autohaus. It is made by UroParts. I took one look at it and drove to the Dealer to pick up an OEM one... and threw the Autohaus one in the trash.

Not that I am some sort of Seals expert, but the quality of the Uro bushing & O-Rings looked far inferior to the OEM.

Now, if price is an issue, I recall ?Pvel? went to a Chrysler dealer and got the SAME OEM MB bushing, in a Mopar box, for like, $7 bucks?

My .02

G

 

well, finally got around to working on the tranny. Had the classic symptoms, occasional rough shifting, flaring, occasionally going into neural on downshift. Decided I may as well go all the way. No symptoms of a leaking plug, but picked up a new plug, conductor plate, spring and fluid.

I wonder If I hold the record for the "spring broken into the most pieces?" Mine was in 4 pieces!!

conductor plate looked ok, although the speed sensor plate was awfully loose and flimsy, so I replace the conductor plate anyway, since I have 130K miles on the car.
Conductor plate swap was easier than I expected. Use floor jack to hold valve body while son and I unscrewed it, then lowered it to the ground. Once done, I put the conductor plate into position while he started two of the bolts. From there it went back together quickly.

So far, I think it's fixed!!. Shifting is back to what it should be like, used carsoft to see if any codes returned, so far A OK.

Only thing I did find, is that if you drain the torque converter and tranny, then try to fill it with 8 qts of fluid, w/o starting the car, the sump won't hold about the last 1/2 quart and it comes out the transmission filler tube!!. And, you guessed it, fluid all over the floor!

Started it up to get fluid into the converter, then checked the "cold" level, still needed about 1 quart, which went in fine.

 

Right in the middle of actually doing this job, and I have the valve body on the bench and cleaning it. The fluid was a little darker then the fluid in the pics, and there is like this graphite sort of gunk in the crevises of the valve body. It cleans off with cleaner, but I am wondering if this transmission is hosed.

 

darkness(unless a burnt smell) and fine particles are not an issue. What becomes an issue is when you see MM sized particles. That's an issue!!

Replacing a spring is one thing, how about the condition of the corresponding valve!!

 

There was just the slightest smell of burn to the fluid. I did the fluid drain through the white cloth and there were no particles, or metal shavings at all.

I checked the spring and it was intact and was within the spec that was listed in this sticky. I cleaned off the valve body as best I could and after looking at it for a while started to realize that the place that you need to be extremely careful about foreign matter getting into is the internals of the valve body where the solenoids go.

I reassembled everything and reinstalled the valve body and was working on getting the new connector to line up with the pins when I looked over at my bench and saw the plastic cover that goes over the valve solenoids sitting next to my tool box partially covered with a rag... Duh!

Back out comes the valve body and on goes the cover. Not sure if it is important to have these on there or not as I didn’t see these in this sticky's pictures but its back on there now. I finished putting it together and filled the transmission with fluid. Test drove for about 12 miles (pretty hard once I felt comfortable with how things felt) and then topped off the transmission.

All in all I only used 5.5 liters of transmission fluid because I didn’t have a Torque Converter drain plug. I feel ok about this as I am going to do another fluid and filter change in a couple of hundred miles to improve the quality of the fluid and to "clean" the innards of the transmission. After that I will run it until the oil change is due and do the flush as shown in Yumlings post.

A big hats off, and thank you to G-AMG for this excellent sticky.

This site and the people on it rock! :bowdown:

 

All in all I only used 5.5 liters of transmission fluid because I didn’t have a Torque Converter drain plug.

make sure you double check the fluid level again today after a long drive. draining 5.5liters from pan seems a lot to me, usually is between 3-4liters.

 

Nice job and glad you found the solenoid covers.

The covers were added shortly after the introduction of the 722.6xx to help reduce solenoid electrical interference from ware materials normally found in transmission fluids.

Most of the stickies are a GREAT learning tool, however because there are numerous engineering changes made in the life of any model, care should be taken regarding "Gospel" or that your component will be the same.

That may not always be the case with out specific documentation for your VIN number. In any event the stickies provide good guidance/perspective and for the most part real and very helpfully to all.

 

that makes sense than, letting it drip overnight will drain more. did you have a magnet in the pan? i initially didn't have a magnet in the e320, but the s320 with exact same transmission did have a magnet.

 

A couple of follow up questions:

1. When receiving the electrics kit, it seems to be just the plastic housing. From looking at the step by step instructions, I will use the existing solenoids witht the new plastic conductor plate. How do you know if the actual solenoid is bad and not just the plastic housing?

2. I have no clue on where to look for the Sonnax Spring. Should I just call a transmission shop? I looked on the Sonnax website but didnt find a distributor in the state of Utah.

3. I am purchasing the parts (from the dealer) and am having a transmission shop do the work for me. I just want to make sure that the job is done correctly and I don't feel confident enough in my own abilities. They quoted me 185.00 plus tax. That sounds reasonable doesnt it?

 

An amazing step-by-step guide, hats off to you fella! :bowdown:

I'v had some difficulties with my C220-CDI 2003. It used to rev high before the shift change, usually from 2-3 i think, and also used to lock into 2nd when harshly accelerated, but this was only in the summer. Was perfectly ok in the winter.
Recently the car whent into limp after locking into 2nd. It's been in limp ever since.
I got diagnostic check by dealers, £80 later and they said that the conductor plate needs changing. So i followed your guide and did exactly that. new conductor plate, atf, filter, bushing with o-rings.
After all this the car is still in limp. To save on cost, I had diagnostics done at another garage (not mercedes equipment but aparantly a high end device costing over £7.5k) and the codes showed the following;

P2500 The transmission has an impermissible transmission ratio
P220A The speed comparison of Y3/6n2 or Y3/6n3 is implausible
P2502 The gear is implausible or the transmission is slipping.

All these codes where cleared but again the car is in limp. Another diagnostic check revealed the following;

P220A The speed comparison of Y3/6n2 or Y3/6n3 is implausible.
P2500 The transmission has an impermissible transmission ratio
(the slipping transmission didnt show this time)

Whats confusing me is that the speed sensor was replaced yet this error is still showing.

Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks

 

To preface, the words "I believe" are synonymous with "I guess"


I believe that when you removed/replaced the conductor plate you did not pay attention to the position of the two punched windows that the rpm sensor is placed.

I also do not believe you payed attention to make sure that the plastic part of the selector valve engages the detent plate.

I believe that one or the other is responsible for the faults, however to provide the understanding you need a forum "mucky muck" to post MB WIS documents AR2719P0200A and AR2719P020001A. Then all will be clear.

 

Thanks for your prompt reply!
I did connect the plastic 'pully' part of the valve body to the detent plate, I did notice that the plastic pully did seem quite slack (is it supposed to be like this?). However with regard to the windows, I did clean that area and made sure there wasnt any gunk there before i replaced the conductor plate.
There was however some build up of gooey old oil on the old conductor place on the rpm sensor, this is why i tried to clean this area on the bottom of the box.
I checked the wires and they seem to be ok, but oil has gone up to the passenger footwell where the TCM is but no oil has gotten into this unit. could the TCM be at fault?

Thanks again.

 

I have helped with ten and did five conductor plates, therefore don't have the years of experience, but for those I have been associated with, "the slack has been all over the place"

It is just very odd that the before and after fault codes are the same, that is what initially steered me to an issue with the install.

The "oil travel up" the cable, that was before the new two seal plug install----correct?

The currently installed plate is new correct?

FYI pin 12 and 35 on tyranny control unit is RPM sensor

FYI pin 1 and 3 on the round transmission plug are the RPM sensors

All the plate pins are in good order, especially the RPM sensor pins?

You may want to check for continuity!!

Thats it for now----good luck

 

Hi buddy,
You'v done and assisted with a fair number of these conductor plate! thats pretty impressive!
You are right on both counts. I found the seals on the pilot bushing where leaking, and the plug that connects into the gearbox was covered in oil, which was blasted with air hose to clean out.
I noticed oil in the footwell after replacing the conductor plate because the car was still in limp. The leak has been sorted with the bushing being replaced.
The conductor plate was new and looked to be exactly the same.
I'm a noob with all this as you'v probably gathered, but I like the satisfaction at the end of a repair and also helps the wallet (which in my case isnt very big) but this is really driving me nutts :crybaby2:
erm.. kinda embarrased to ask, but how would I carry out a continuity check on the cable?

Thanks again

 

Most multi meters have a continuity setting and I would start by connecting the circular 13 pin conductor plate connector and then go to the other end, which would be at the transmission control module and test the socket location 12 and 35, the speed sensors.

Read the multi meter manual some will make a sound others will light up when checking for continuity, who knows what yours will do!!

Now, it's a slow check everything cycle!!

 

thanks again for your help here. I just ordered a multimeter from ebay, will take a few days to arrive.
I'll post an update then! :thumbsup:

 

Hi!
I got my multimeter today and first thing after breakfast, i jumped into the car and unpluged the harness to the tcm. The other side of the cable is still plugged into the gearbox conductor plate, so i'm doing the test at the point where it plugs into the TCM. I put the multimeter probes into the point 12 and 35 in the harness that plugs into the tcm, but didnt get any tones/beeps or light when checking for continuity. Does this mean that the cable is broken anywhere?

Thanks