Hello everyone! I'm new to this forum! I have a 1996 Cherokee Country with the 4.0.

I have a strange issue with my transmission. I originally bought the jeep with what I was told is a bad transmission. I changed the fluid and the filter and it worked just fine. I thought this fixed the transmission issues. I drove it for about a day then parked it for a few weeks. Today I went to drive it and it is having the same problem as before. It will not move once in gear. It does not matter if I am in reverse or drive nothing happens. I even tried giving it gas to see if it will engage and nothing happens. I then checked the fluid and it was full still. I turned the jeep off and on again and it worked! It was moving while in gear. I started driving down the road and it started slipping and would not move once again. I again turned it off then on again and it worked long enough for me to get back home (800 feet). Once I pulled into the driveway it stopped again. I proceeded to cycle the ignition and once again it worked long enough for me to park the jeep.

Any thoughts of what this is? Thank you!

 

Try shifting it manually to 1-2 and see if it moves.

 

96 still had a separate box for the tcm yes? I mean, check the mechanical aspect first- shifter cable, etc. But if it works fine key on/off that leads me to think in a different direction...

 

With this issue you should be seeing a "CHECK ENGINE" light (CEL) on your instrument cluster. If you don't, check the bulb by turning the ignition switch to ON (stop before cranking the engine) and look for the light. If you don't see the CEL the bulb is probably burned out.

If possible, drive the Jeep to an auto parts store and have them hook up their code reader and see if there's any Diagnostic Trouble Codes stored, either active or pending.

If there is, record the code numbers and post them back here to see if we can assist you.

DO try manually shifting through the gears.

 

Thank you for the responses!

shifting between gears 1-2, 3 does not do anything different.

The CEL light is not on, but as soon as I get my hands on a diagnostic scanner I will scan it to see what it says. I don't trust it enough to make it to the store

 

I also checked all linkage and everything seemed fine. I am unsure about the TCM.

 

I was just able to start tearing into the Jeep this week...

I scanned it with a DRB scanner and no codes came up. It was completely clean.

I dropped the pan and found that the brand new trans filter was completely clogged up with a combination of what looked like mud and trans fluid. There was A LOT of it.

I cleaned out the filter thoroughly.

Any ideas what in the world could have caused this mass amount of gook to appear in the filter? Would it be reasonable to think that after this cleaning and re install that this could of fixed my issue?

Thank you in advance!

 

Are you losing any coolant?

 

Hope you used a new filter.
I would check radiator for signs of trans fluid. Might have leak at cooler and getting cross contamination.