No overdrive/4th gear, bad smoke behind car.

I met my girlfriend today after work and she was following me to the movies, about a 45 minute drive. Series of events was something like this.

Got on the Interstate
About 10 minutes later, traveling nice and steady, the transmission downshifted. It would not come back up.

Got off at the next exit. The shiftpoint at about 45 mph no longer existed. Overdrive/4th gear?

Kept going

She called me on her cellphone complaining that it was really foggy out and she wanted to pull over until the fog cleared. I told her it was perfectly clear out. It was grey smoke, filling the air behind me. She said it was coming out of the exhaust, but looking in the rear view mirror I couldn't tell, but it sure was smoky back there. While I was going 65. I pulled over, checked transmission fluid, (it was good) checked oil (good). After the trip was done I realized i had used a full 1/3 tank of gas for 45 minutes.

After the movies, (2.5 hours) I tried it out again, seemed to work perfectly fine. After a little bit, the same problem occurred.

Any Ideas? Thanks so much.

 

well if you have a valve cover leak, oil will hit the exhaust and create TONS of smoke. the trans problem is beyond me. im sure the jeep gurus will have some tips

 

Smell the tranny fluid and see if it smells burnt.

 

It smelled like tranny fluid. It was not burnt.

 

Check your antifreeze could have a internal leak and it's smokin out the exhaust

 

yeah have u ever overheated ur heep? a blown head gasket could def smoke like that. not sure about the tranny problem

 

see if there are any oil marks on your driveway....might tell you were leak might be..was smoke grey or white...mine started to leak from trans a puff of white smoke every now and again..and shifting funny...

 

Update: I picked it up this morning, and brought it straight over to advance auto. Looked underneath, and sure enough, transmission fluid all under there. On everything, it seemed. I picked up a gallon of fluid, and added some, but I couldn't even tell where it was on the dipstick, the entire bottom half seemed to have a very thin coat on it whenever it came out. I checked idling, in neutral. Any common spots to leak from? I'm about to go out there and try to find it, now that its cooled down a bit, but it seems to leak much more while driving than while parked.

 

Here it goes again. Only leaks fluid while hot. I pulled the TCU and ran it without that, shifts through the gears fine. Everything points to the Torque Converter. I read on a separate forum (http://www.dieselplace.com/forum/sho....php?p=3297981) that someone suffered a similar problem, and replaced the Torque Converter Clutch Valve and solenoid. Is this a weekend project, or is a project for a specialist? Where would you look to purchase these parts?