twright1284

Hello all, I am new here, and have done quite a bit of searching on this, and can't seem to find anything matching my exact symptoms. So, i was gifted a 94 GC recently by my father, the car does not drive anymore due to this problem. Basically, the car starts, sounds fine when in Park, however once positioned in any other gear, even neutral, it makes a horrendous grinding/ rattling sound. It does not move or lurch when put in gear unless you bring the RPMs up significantly. I am not really sure where to start. I am on a pretty strict budget, but would love to get this bad boy going again. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you. One more piece of info that may be of interest, my dad said when it stopped working, he was on the freeway when he heard a loud BANG, and the car came to a halt and had to be towed home.

dave1123

Welcome to CF!

I'd be willing to bet the forward clutch in the transmission **** the bed. Drop the trans pan and look for broken pieces. Used transmissions from the junkyard are a crap shoot. MAYBE you'll get a good one, maybe not. You're looking at $1200 to $3000 for a rebuilt. A DIY rebuild is not for the faint-hearted, but can be done with a lot of care.

Good luck.

Bustedback

I would have to agree, the transmission is junk. Time to make a decision, re manufactured, have this one rebuilt, or a boneyard tranny. Sometimes even a free Jeep is expensive.

tlang

+1

went through 4 trannies in my ZJ before getting rid of it.

Pulling them isnt bad. I would not recommend rebuilding yourself

dave1123

twright1284

Thank you all for the replies! Yeah, I am all to curious on the idea of rebuilding myself, this is my first automatic, and so I am kinda lost when it comes to it. I am not certain of the complexity level of doing this though... I am somewhat mechanically inclined, I have rebuilt a few turbochargers, clutches, head gaskets, and fully rebuilt the engine in my R6. So I do not know exactly how something like this would compare. Are there any special tools I would need for this specific job, if I were to go this route?

Bustedback

YouTube, a factory service manual, and a friend at a transmission shop will make it easier. I'm going to recommend buying a boneyard transmission and going through it, replace the seals, clutches, and solenoids, plus a reman torque converter. Cracking open a blown up transmission may lead to more problems depending on how scattered the guts are.

dave1123

The thing with a automatic trans is keeping all the parts in order, as in clutch plates, driven plates, spacers and pressure plates, clutch pistons and seals, etc so they all go back together in the exact same order. As Busted said, if you've got broken parts, you may not know what they're supposed to look like when they are good. Also, if there is too much debris in the fluid, it can score the pump so it has to be replaced as well.

twright1284

Ok, so I decided on taking my luck on a boneyard trans. However after scouring the web and calling many dismantlers, the 46rh seems to be really hard to come by. And the few that I found, are just as expensive as a remanned one... However there are boat loads of 46re transmissions out there for relatively cheap. Are these two interchangeable? As far as direct bolt on?

Bustedback

What engine do you have? The 4.0 had the 42rh or 42re depending on the year. I think the 5.2 had the 44rh behind it. The RH is hydraulic operated and the RE is electronic operated.

twright1284

It has the 5.2

twright1284

So I am back after doing some more research, so I have yet another question, if I were to replace the overdrive housing with a rebuilt one, is that all I would need to replace theoretically? Because I found rebuilt overdrive sections for really cheap.

twright1284

Does anybody know?

rollingstone

So far everyone seems to agree that your transmission is to blame for the grinding/not driving.
The first thing that comes to my mind though is the transfer case. You said you have the 5.2L v8 so you have an NP249 transfer case. I had the same case and a similar thing happen. I would be driving and the t-case would come out of gear and just grind and grind and grind.
I pulled the t-case, ripped it apart, took the input shaft out of it, and put it in an NP242. Problem solved.


Your issue might be the transmission, but I thought I'd give my 2 cents due to my recent experience.


Have you tried messing with the t-case shifter at all? Making sure it is in gear?

twright1284

I messed around with it for a while. Took it out of all time 4WD, put it in 4H And 4L, All that happens is it makes a lot of rattling and grinding, until I put it in park. Then it shuts up. If it is my transmission, would it work if I just replaced the overdrive assembly? Or is there more to the rebuild kit?