I was driving home this evening in my '80 245 DL with a M-46, when something strange happened.

I stopped off to get gas, and filled the tank. Everything had been great up till that point.

The car ran fine for the short distance from the gas station to the free way on-ramp. The light turns green, and away I go.

Everything was fine until I shifted into 3rd gear. Suddenly it felt like I was in the wrong gear, or that the clutch hadn't released completely (and neither of which are the case.) The entire car just felt bogged down. Flooring it didn't seem to make a bit of difference in terms of acceleration.

Just barely able to maintain free way speeds, I pulled off at the first exit and popped the hood in a parking lot to see if I could find something obvious. I checked the vacuum hoses and all seems to be intact. This car doesn't have an Air Mass Meter, otherwise that would have been my next check. (The problems are similar to a screwy AMM).

I couldn't find anything after my visual inspection. I jumped back in the car and slowly and carefully made my way home.


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Now a few other odd things about this.

The engine is sure a lot quieter since this started happening. No clue why.

This is most noticeable in lower gears. Driving in either 1st or 2nd causes the car to "jump" and "lurch" quite hard at very short random intervals while driving along. The whole thing is just shaking bad. It's not as noticeable in higher gears, but it is still there for sure.

When I floor it, the car doesn't really want to respond. Some times it does for a split second, causing the car to spring forward, only to have it stop responding and making it jump back.

I am driving around with out the dash cover on since I haven't quite finished my heater core, so I suppose that it could be related, although I really doubt it is. I have all the emissions stuff hooked up properly (the Lombda Sond computer, the instrument cluster, etc...)

Any ideas?

Thanks as always.