Forgive me in advance for a "duplicatish" post, I made a similar one under the thread for the superior shift kit, which I have one of to install along with a fresh bowden cable

Anyone ever heard anything about folks drilling out certain holes in the valve body to get more pressure, stiffer shifts, perhaps esp when a shift kit is installed or as part of "shift correction / tuning"


Anyway I'm making a new post because I was hoping to get this topic more eyeballs and while it involves a superior shift correction kit, it's more about actual modifications to the valve body than it is about that kit

Took me this long to get with two people (one was a shop owner who has owned them and said he's work on many of them) who know these cars better than I do to figure out my detent / bowden cable isn't doing the job it's supposed to, shop owner told me the hook on the end in the trans case is snapped off and my clutches are getting killed

When I told him I had the superior kit (to respring the valve body) and a new cable he was like "yeah good, cos you need to get them in right away"

He told me "you want to take it out to change all the springs, clean it out and drill out the holes. I was like "what holes" he says "there are two holes in the valve body that you drill out, increase the pressure, get better shifts.....it's in the superior kit instructions" He also recommended running Dex 5, said "it will run cooler, smoother" maybe he meant dex 6, gsxr said he had bad results with that in his trans, I might just stick with dex 3

Today I opened up my Superior kit, there are a couple of holes circled but nothing that says anything about drilling them out. I couldn't find any mention of this on the boards. As much as this guy sounded like he knew what to do with a trans this age, I still wanted to get some feedback from the group here.

All thoughts on valve body mods and fluid choices for are appreciated!

Oh car is the 1982 300SD a 1985 OM617 and I believe the original trans it's the 722.303

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-SpecialDelivery
1985 300CD Silver/Blue H&R Suspension (Sold, still cryin over that)
1982 300SD Silver/Blue '85 OM617 (Sold)
1982 300D - Blue/Blue (Sold)

Wouldnt making holes larger make less pressure?

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hum.....
1987 300TD 311,000M Stolen. Presumed destroyed

I think he was talkin about more flow

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-SpecialDelivery
1985 300CD Silver/Blue H&R Suspension (Sold, still cryin over that)
1982 300SD Silver/Blue '85 OM617 (Sold)
1982 300D - Blue/Blue (Sold)

Get hold of the ATSG manual and there's loads of information concerning the updates on the 722.3 valve bodies. Do a search for whunter / dieselkraut22 (perhaps he's 23 on this forum I forget) / 722.3 valve body and hopefully you'll find some information about the different springs available. The 722.3 transmission was updated a lot.

As for drilling holes in the separator plates I see no mention of it in the ATSG manual for the 722.3 / 4 transmissions

HOWEVER

There is mention of this sort of thing in the 722.1 ATSG manual.

I conclude that drilling holes in separator plates is a 722.1 thing not a 722.3 / 4 thing.

(I rate my correctness on this point to be about 85.23%!)

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1992 W201 190E 1.8 171,000 km - Daily driver
1981 W123 300D ~ 100,000 miles / 160,000 km - project car stripped to the bone
1965 Land Rover Series 2a Station Wagon CIS recovery therapy!
1961 Volvo PV544 Bare metal rat rod-ish thing

I'm here to chat about cars and to help others - I'm not here "to always be right" like an internet warrior



Don't leave that there - I'll take it to bits!

I installed select components from the Superior kit in my '82 300D (160k miles at the time) several years ago. Although it involved some "trial and error," the outcome has been quite satisfactory. No drilling involved.

My recommendation would be to start with the kit components that address the specific problems that you are experiencing. Although Superior's recommendation is to install the entire spring kit (less the obvious multi-option springs, of course), my experience in doing just that was fairly disasterous.

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When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl.

Is there a reason you did not call or email the source; Superior Shift and find out why the holes were circled and to relate the story of what the Mechanic said about it beint in the instructions?

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84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel

I have been meaning to ask you this; do they still sell the ASTG 722.1-722.2 Manuals in Europe (in English)?
One of our Members had complained the no longer sold it here and when I looked at their site about one year ago they no longer had it for sale.

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84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel

It has been not for sale world wide for some time now. I got my copy from someone in America.

It looks at though ATSG were selling photocopies of photocopies anyway. The text is mostly readable but the pictures are really crap. The valve body pictures are particularly poor in my copy. The poor print quality of the ATSG manual was one of the reasons why I wrote that rebuild DIY for the 722.1(18).

After I had written that DIY (which took about ten times longer than it did to actually do the rebuild!) I found that the German FSM CD has a really nice clear chapter on the 722.1 rebuild...

...oh well live and learn!

(If you need help sourcing a copy you know how to get in touch with me)

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1992 W201 190E 1.8 171,000 km - Daily driver
1981 W123 300D ~ 100,000 miles / 160,000 km - project car stripped to the bone
1965 Land Rover Series 2a Station Wagon CIS recovery therapy!
1961 Volvo PV544 Bare metal rat rod-ish thing

I'm here to chat about cars and to help others - I'm not here "to always be right" like an internet warrior



Don't leave that there - I'll take it to bits!

Just to close out this issue, but by no means the thread

Yesterday we got the pan off and the valve body off The detent (Bowden) cable was NOT connected inside the transmission, as Joe (the shop owner) had predicted, removed it from the car and took almost a full can of brake clean to blast out the gook build up

When he saw the ST (Superior Transmissions) kit and opened the diagram and instructions he said something like "ok so they dont want you to drill on this one" the instructions had a picture of a valve body, but it was different pattern from the one in my car

The female part of the plastic thrust pin assembly that holds the "spring trains" together CRACKED and couldn't hold the replacement spring from the $70 ST kit WHICH comes with TWO main springs for each of K1 and K2 accumulators "firmer" and "firmest" but NO THRUST PIN CONNECTORS!!!!

If anyone can tell me I'm wrong on this please do but at the shop yesterday I remembered the hunt for a separate part number for the K2 to be a dead end, that OEM revision/update to that part was supposed to be a tougher spring with same part used for both K1 and K2 So we called the dealer, told them what we were doing and needed (the thrust pins) they needed till tomorrow, sent over two kits of the same part number, $9 each, which had the two plastic thrust pin halves, and the three springs used to re-spring one accumulator who knows what MB would ding you for each of the rest of the little springs that go into a valve body rebuild, apparently there are a few, but still ST could give you the four little plastic thrust pin clip things that hold the stack together rather than make you buy OEM spring kit just to get them, and the phone number on the paperwork in the box was dead, so anyway

The OEM springs that came in the OEM kit from the dealer LOOKED alot different from the ones that came out (thicker coil wire) and VERY close to the springs from the ST kit as far as coil wire thickness however the ST kit spring for "firmest" had more turns and was JUST a bit harder Come to think as I type I didn't bother to compare against the ST "firmer" and just decided to install the OEM springs that came for k1 k2

All the rest of the springs the ST kit had a replacement for were swapped, after the entire valve body was taken apart, cleaned out with a liberal application of brake cleaner, put it back together, new detent (Bowden) cable attached, converter drained, new filter and whole thing refilled with MERCON 5

We drove it, it shifted and held gears ALOT better, 2 to 3 goes Beautiful, but still CLUNKS into 4th and a little earlier than I'd like Joe exclaimed right away, that my turbo was NOT working, no boost, not enough engine power, not going to shift right, my Benz head buddy (who happens to be the son of a German mechanic) agreed We all drove it, I concur with them on the prognosis

Over all I'm happy with Joe and the decision to hire him to do this valve body re-springing he knew what he was doing and IMHO is a good tech, I'd never done a valve body before, now I'd be more comfortable doing it, ESPECIALLY if the car wasnt my only car, which my SD is, but still I'm happier that I paid a pro rather than went this one alone, I got to sit shot gun on the job so in addition to the work itself I got to watch and learn some some

well I know from my airbox escapades that the turbo is not siezed up, but that does explain the sluggin and chugging of smoke from the tailpipe

I think the seals on the metal tube that connects the compressor side of the turbo tot intake manifold are shot ( it' collects greasy dirt on the hot side of that fitting) and or the wastegate is stuck wide open and or the turbo is so caked up with carbon it's not turbing freely or I dont know what other than it's pull it apart, figure it out, clean it all out, do the EGR delete finally, re-gasket and seal everything time!!! Also been thinking about doing the whole boost controller and gauges like v, egt and boost pressure too

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee~!!!

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-SpecialDelivery
1985 300CD Silver/Blue H&R Suspension (Sold, still cryin over that)
1982 300SD Silver/Blue '85 OM617 (Sold)
1982 300D - Blue/Blue (Sold)

Over all good news then - just the clunk into 4th to fix then?

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1992 W201 190E 1.8 171,000 km - Daily driver
1981 W123 300D ~ 100,000 miles / 160,000 km - project car stripped to the bone
1965 Land Rover Series 2a Station Wagon CIS recovery therapy!
1961 Volvo PV544 Bare metal rat rod-ish thing

I'm here to chat about cars and to help others - I'm not here "to always be right" like an internet warrior



Don't leave that there - I'll take it to bits!

The large (long) accumulator springs in the Superior kit are installed "as is." And they work fine that way.

I installed the "firm" K1 accumulator spring per the instructions, got great results, and didn't buy anything extra. Had you tried to assemble the "firm" springs on the pins, I suspect that you would have realized that you didn't need the pins.

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When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl.

What are you talking about when you say you dont need the pins,the ST kit shows you in the instructions to replace the stock springs with theirs around the pins and reinstall the three springs and two pin halves ( snapped together of course) into the bores in the valve body

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-SpecialDelivery
1985 300CD Silver/Blue H&R Suspension (Sold, still cryin over that)
1982 300SD Silver/Blue '85 OM617 (Sold)
1982 300D - Blue/Blue (Sold)

I think that is for the "less firm" option that replaces only one spring of the set. The "firm" spring is installed as is, replacing the original spring train. For sure, that's the way it was on the kit that I installed a few years ago.

Correct me if I am wrong. But I am 100% sure that there are no plastic pins in my K1 accumulator. I am also fairly certain the trying to install the "firm" spring on the existing spring train would be a very challenging experience.

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When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl.

no sir those plastic pins stay, i'll upload pics later

__________________
-SpecialDelivery
1985 300CD Silver/Blue H&R Suspension (Sold, still cryin over that)
1982 300SD Silver/Blue '85 OM617 (Sold)
1982 300D - Blue/Blue (Sold)

Be sure to include the part of the instructions that state "Replace the complete spring train in the K1 accumulator with the purple spring supplied." And similar wording for the K2 accumulator.

Keep in mind that the pictures in the Superior kit instructions (which are copied from the ATSG manual) generally show only the original configuration; they are not illustrations of the kit components as installed.

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When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl.