Rusty_OToole

Somebody may have put in gear lube by mistake, or they thought it would slow down the leak. Your idea of replacing the seal and changing to the correct oil is a good one.

There are 2 pipe plugs on the right side of the transmission, one above the other. The lower plug, at the bottom of the transmission, is the drain plug for draining out the old oil. The other one, half way up the side, is the fill plug and level plug. Remove the upper plug and stick your finger in. If you can touch the oil it is fine. If not, add #10 oil, or TDH tractor fluid, ISO 32 or 22 grade. Add until it starts to overflow or drip out. Then put the plug back in. To change the oil use the drain plug to drain out the old oil then refill as above. The access plate for the fluid drive unit is farther forward than the one for the transmission. It is directly below the instrument panel on the right side of the transmission tunnel. Roll back the carpet, remove the plate, and you should find the bellhousing. There should be a round hole covered by a snap in disc. Pry this out and you should see the fluid drive unit. Bump the starter until you see the drain/fill plug. This could take a while, there is only one and if you turn the engine too fast you could miss it. Before you take out the plug stuff a rag around the hole so you can't accidentally drop it in the bellhousing or under the car. The whole subject of the care and operation of this transmission was covered exhaustively on this board, back around 2008. Do a search for Fluid Drive and you should find much food for thought. The Fluid Drive and semi auto transmission are one of the best efforts at an early automatic. Simple, rugged, and reliable. They require a slightly different driving technique like a cross between a standard and an automatic. Once you know how, driving one is easy but it is not easy to figure out the technique on your own. The best manual is the one the factory provided to dealers. Every dealer had one, and there are still hundreds around. They turn up on Ebay, at old auto flea markets, and from old manual dealers. Going price around $50. There are reprints available for $20 but not as complete. There are also Motor manuals but they cover all makes for a series of years. Any one from 1947 to 1960 should cover your car. Not as complete as the factory manual but they cover the essentials. The choke is called a Sisson choke. It works on the same principle as newer automatic chokes with a few differences. If you do a search for Sisson choke you should find instructions for inspecting and adjusting.

There are 2 pipe plugs on the right side of the transmission, one above the other. The lower plug, at the bottom of the transmission, is the drain plug for draining out the old oil. The other one, half way up the side, is the fill plug and level plug. Remove the upper plug and stick your finger in. If you can touch the oil it is fine. If not, add #10 oil, or TDH tractor fluid, ISO 32 or 22 grade. Add until it starts to overflow or drip out. Then put the plug back in. To change the oil use the drain plug to drain out the old oil then refill as above. The access plate for the fluid drive unit is farther forward than the one for the transmission. It is directly below the instrument panel on the right side of the transmission tunnel. Roll back the carpet, remove the plate, and you should find the bellhousing. There should be a round hole covered by a snap in disc. Pry this out and you should see the fluid drive unit. Bump the starter until you see the drain/fill plug. This could take a while, there is only one and if you turn the engine too fast you could miss it. Before you take out the plug stuff a rag around the hole so you can't accidentally drop it in the bellhousing or under the car.

A fanning mill is a blower use for separating chaff off of grain and similar tasks. An acetylene generator was used to make acetylene gas for welding. You put in calcium carbide and water. The water drips on the carbide, or the carbide drops into the water, and releases acetylene gas. These were never very satisfactory or reliable and they were apt to blow up in the wrong hands even when new.

No I don't. Well I do but it would be pointless for me to speculate when you have all the parts in front of you. Go ahead and use your own judgement.

You may be able to order one from your local NAPA or other good auto parts store.

This could be confusing. It could be that your shaft and rotor turn clockwise, while the plate turns counter clockwise. This is because the base plate must turn the opposite way of the shaft, in order to advance the timing. Compare the plate to the one in your distributor. If they are the same OK. If it is a mirror image it is for the opposite rotation distributor.

Best thing to do is send it away for a rebuild. If it has not been done it will need to be done soon. Today's gas eats up the old rubber parts. You need the new formula neoprene pump diaphragm and new valves.

The first picture is a puzzler. You will need to clear away the dirt and leaves and get a better look. May be what is left of a heavy duty hydraulic jack or compressed air powered jack or bay lift. Second pic, flywheel off some kind of machine possibly farm machinery. Third, blades off a fanning mill. Could be off the same machine as the flywheel. Fourth, looks like a carbide acetylene generator used for welding. Last made during WW2 at least I have never seen a newer one.

If the gauge reads full with the ignition on and empty when off as the questioner states, then it must be shorted not open. Some cars had an access to the gauge sender under the trunk floor mat. On Chryslers there was a big rubber plug that could be pried out, directly above the gauge sender. GM usually did not have this feature but it can't hurt to roll back the carpet and look.

SAE 10 is fine.

It would not cause the fuel pump not to work. The 2 chambers are separate. The bottom one pumps fuel, the upper one pumps air. To connect the upper chamber or vacuum pump you need to have a line from the intake manifold to the pump, and from the pump to the wipers. Right now you probably have a line from the manifold right to the wipers. The pump should be marked. In operation, the manifold vacuum holds the pump open and it just sits there doing nothing. But if manifold vacuum drops off the pump kicks in and keeps the wipers working. This is to prevent the wipers stalling out on hills.

This was an improvement over the triangular wheel. It eliminated one bump. The triangular wheel was an advance over the square wheel for the same reason.

You can buy a new plug at any auto electric shop and some auto parts stores. Is this the model with separate voltage regulator. That is how they came but might have been changed to a newer alt with built in reg. I have a wiring diagram that shows the original wires as R=16W and F=16DBL. R goes to the 2 terminal on the voltage reg, F goes to the F terminal on the voltage reg.

It's all according to how far you want to go. Split seams can be sewn up, leather softened and reconditioned, paint touched up, polished and waxed, chrome and aluminum polished. The good thing is, a Mercedes is made of real steel, real leather, real chrome and can be kept original and refurbished. Many cheaper cars simply fall apart in your hands if you try to fix anything. If you can find old Mercedes in junkyards and Pic a parts you may find replacement parts that are better than yours but not glaringly new. I applaud your efforts to keep the car original. Once you get it in condition, a little work every month will hold off the effects of age almost indefinitely.

Incidentally today's disc brake cars can run the wheel bearings much hotter than the old cars. They require a very high temp lubricant. Today's wheel bearing grease is better than the old stringy stuff and lower friction too.

Look in the phone book for auto electric shops or ask around your local mechanics, garages, etc. There are auto electric shops everywhere. Most of them can rebuild your starter or generator. Phone first, some prefer not to mess with the real old stuff, or specialize in big trucks etc. but there should be someone who can help you. As for the price there is no hard and fast rule but I would expect to pay $100 to $150 depending what it needs. You can ask beforehand, but on a starter that old, they may hesitate to give a firm price because you never know how bad it is until you take it apart. But if the starter was working until recently, it is not rusted or seized up, and the field coils and armature are still good, it should not be too expensive. In any case it will be cheaper than for a late model Caddy, Lincoln or Japanese luxury car and way cheaper than for a BMW or Mercedes

It sounds like the wire to the gas tank has shorted out. You can check this by disconnecting the wire from the tank sender. If the gauge acts the same, it has a short. If the gauge does not move, it must be a faulty gauge sender in the tank. If it is a bad wire, and you can't find where it is chafed or shorted, the easiest repair might be to run a new wire from the gauge to the tank and disconnect the old one.

I think this was called sodium soap grease. Don't know if it is still made but if you really want some there should be a few cans at flea markets, Ebay etc. .................Later.................... A quick Google search turned up info on sodium soap grease. It answers the description you give. It is still available from different oil companies.

The thin, ISO 22 oil is ideal for the Fluid Drive. The thin oil reduces friction and improves the performance of the Fluid Drive. It works by pressure not by the thickness of the oil.

Most parts are available from your local parts stores. NAPA is said to be good on old car parts. Best is a dusty old shop with a gray haired or bald headed old parts man with a rack of paper catalogs on the counter. If there is an old dog asleep on the floor, so much the better. See if you can find where the local farmers buy parts. Other than that Andy Bernbaum and Roberts Motor Parts are the best known old Chrysler parts specialists. Vintage Power Wagons is good to but of course, for Power Wagon truck parts. But they use the same flathead engine as your car.

I don't know what that picture is, but it isn't the Fluid Drive. The Fluid Drive unit looks like a torque converter. It is inside the bellhousing. To get at it, look for an access hole on the right side of the transmission tunnel under the instrument panel. Roll back the carpet from the front. You will find a plate in the floor held down by screws. Remove the plate. Under it, you will see the bellhousing. It should have a round knockout plug. Pry it out. Inside, you will see the Fluid Drive. If the fill plug is not visible, "bump" the starter until it comes into view. Stuff a rag around the hole. Unscrew the plug. If you can see or feel the oil, it is full. If not top it up. Chrysler says you never need to change the oil in the Fluid Drive. Whether they contemplated them lasting for 50 years I don't know. If you had done a search like I told you, you could have found out all this in minutes and saved me typing it all out again for the fortieth time.

Shift slower and less often. A car like that with its high torque motor should not need to shift very often. Let the motor do its work, you might be surprised. In those days drivers did not expect to shift gears all the time like today. Of course you must make sure you have the correct lube in the trans.

It is possible to time the spark to the piston and have it 180 degrees out. Turn the engine with the #1 spark plug out and wait for the *woosh* of air out the spark plug hole. This is the compression stroke. Check that the distributor rotor is pointing to #1. If it is not that then probably stuck valves. Have you done a compression test? This is too obvious but an engine will not start if the rings are dry. This can happen if an engine sits for a long time or due to cylinder wash down from too much gas. The cure is to squirt a little oil in each cylinder from an oil can.

An old friend (and I do mean old) used a Bosch magneto off a 1911 Cadillac on his Model T as part of a hop up in the early twenties.