gman556

alright, so Saturday i took the xj to the parents house to have some family din din.. that night it was negative temperatures and the jeep felt great all day. as i get home that night pulling into my driveway i experience a power loss in "D". So i dropped the gears to "1-2" and it drove fine and had normal acceleration. i just recently took my NSS off and opened it up to clean and add electrical jelly to the contacts after it threw a check engine light. i did this about two months ago and haven't had any issues since. it felt like the same symptoms, like it was stuck in 3rd gear from a stop, but this time no check engine light...

it was way too cold to mess around with anything that night so i got back to it on Sunday morning. well, Sunday morning i went out and warmed up the xj for a couple minutes. put her in drive and NO problems! i drove it up and down my driveway a bunch. my driveway is about 125 yrds up and down inclines to the road without any problems. since Sunday was V day i had plans with the girl so i wasn't able to check fluid or anything..

has anyone experienced this before? Im sure it will do it again, maybe someone can point me in the right direction at where to start looking.

any info would be greatly appreciated! thanks!

CCKen

A mechanically sticking solenoid will give you shifting problems but may not turn on the CEL (set a DTC) because the signal from the TCM to the solenoid(s) is working but the solenoid is not responding (stuck). If you had a '98 + Transmission with an Input Speed Sensor it may trigger a CEL, but the '97 does not have one.


Always check to see if your trans fluid (Dexron III/Mercon) is full and that it does not smell burnt or is black in color.


I have procedures for testing inputs to the TCM if you think you want to try them.


Solenoids.

gman556

thanks for the response, ill be checking the fluids as soon as i can. weird thing is that it didn't have the problem the next day.. i did wiggle the TCM before i started it on Sunday... Im hoping it was a bad connection or something simple.. Ill gladly take the procedures for testing the TCM tho.

CCKen

Here's the procedures. Note that the connector pin out and procedures covers the '97 to the '01 TCM.


I recommend that you use safety pins to probe the connector pin cavities because it's a PITA to get at the connector, let alone trying to touch the pin cavities with the meter probes.


Read through the pin out chart and procedures first before starting the tests.


Use a quality manual ranging digital multimeter for the tests.

gman556

Thank you sir.

JeremyXJ

For what it's worth, my transmission was giving me all kinds of grief for years. One of the issues I had was that it would stick in third gear and not change to any other forward gear. It would be terrible one day and fine the next. Long trips and higher temps tended to exacerbate the issues. I tried all kinds of tricks to get it to work properly.

Long story short, I replaced all three of the shift solenoids and it's been working flawlessly ever since. Also keep in mind that many people have tested their solenoids, have them check out, and yet they still fail in operation. There are kits out there with all three solenoids, for less than $100. I suggest just replacing them all and putting some clean fluid and a filter in it.

gman556

Okay so I replaced the nss with a new one. The check engine light went away for a while. Now today it came back, same symptoms as before. No power in D but if I go into 1-2 I can accelerate. If I disconnect the battery for a couple minutes the check engine light goes away and it will drive fine. Then after a while it will come back and have no power in drive again..

If it was the tcm wouldn't i have no power in D all the time, even after I disconnect the battery? And the solenoids, if they were bad wouldn't it always have and issue even if the computer is reset? I'm thinking about just getting a new tranny.

Anyone have these issues?

Turbo X_J

What is the exact code?

gman556

I held the trip rest button while turning on ignition.. no code came up after it went through its check. I don't have a OBDll scanner at the moment but wouldn't the code come up doing the key/trip button trick?

Turbo X_J

You'll need an actual OBDII scanner.

gman556

Roger that, I'll have to pick one up tomorrow. Thanks man

Radi

The NSS isn't causing your shifting issue.

Did you check the fluid for level and quality? Not black or burned?

Solenoids can become intermittent, temperature sensitive or develop other sorts of flakiness. It is far more likely to be a solenoid issue than TCM.
It's a fairly simple pan drop to change them.

gman556

Fluids are all good, that was the first thing I checked before I started the thread. I'm thinking solenoids also now after I did a bunch of research. Tomorrow I'll scan it for codes. I just ordered the solenoids, filter and gasket. Iv been into cars for awhile now and this is my first jeep. Today I replaced the front axle u-joints. I enjoy working on it and I enjoy driving it even more. Just want to get all the problems fixed so I can hit the trails at rausch creek off road park soon.

caged

yes. change your throttle position sensor.

jjz28

Not trying to hijack thread or anything but I am new to jeeps and was wondering why the diagram that has the solenoids on it a few posts up doesn't have a 96 year?