I know trans questions keep getting asked but... I just bought my jeep it has 200k miles on t its a 96 with the aw4... When i bought it it would go into reverse or drive and move a little then stop moving, Its tempermental on moving in forward or reverse gear... Ive gone through tvs, iac, all the linkage, and tps... I put it up on stands tonight to see if it would get going without weight on it.. I can put it in drive and the driveshaft wont spin but if i manually turn the driveshaft by hand it will keep spinning like its idling.... same thing in reverse. What could cause it to not be able to start moving on its own?

 

my fsm is in the mail and for some reason every link i find for the 1996 fsm doesnt work...

 

I don't have '96 either. '95 & '97 if you want to try those?
You can get what you want here too: >Jeep Informational Center at Morris 4x4 Center
Fill in your info.

 

i wnet through the troubleshooting on both 95 and 97 and i have forward and reverse movement but it only does it temporarily... each thing i try fixing seems like it works for a few minutes then nothing... I cant get it moving enough so i can even get it to operational temperatures to check fluid level.. I dont believe there is a mark for cold level..

 

Ok I got my fsm in and went down the chart for no forward or reverse movement. All thats left to check according to manual without pulling trans is solenoids. I was wondering will all of the solenoids go intermittent before they go out? And would they all go out at one time?

 

There are 3 solenoids, and they usually don't all fail at the same time. If that is the symptom, try checking the resistance to the solenoids through the female, grey, 7 pin connector near the trans dipstick. Your problem may be the ground or lack of ground. The center pin in the row of 3 is ground from the trans to the TCU. Check that pin to the ground post on your battery and see how much reistance there is. If its open, or high resistance, the lack of ground is likely your problem. If the resistance is less than 1 ohm, you have ground and need to check the resistance of the solenoids. They are in the row of 4 with the offset pin and 2 closest being the solenoids. They should check out to 12-18 ohm in relation to ground(use your ground battery post).

NOTE: I checked my ground pin again, and it appears that the TCU is the source of the ground. With the 7 pin unplugged, the center pin on the female connector shows opwn in reference to ground, but its corresponding male pin from the TCU shows very low resistance to ground.

According to your symtoms, you have an inner trans or torque converter issue. Even with the TCU unplugged, or TCU fuse out, the trans should go into reverse by selecting R, or 1st by selecting 1-2 and move just fine. The electronics are involved when it comes time to shift 1-2-3 when the lever is in 3 or additionally to OD when the lever is in D.

 

On a side note I'm pretty sure that one of the two clutch drums is for HIGH and REVERSE. The other is for 1 and 2. If there is a problem with that drum -broken piston-bad lip seal/o ring or just worn clutches that will give U problems and mean the unit coming out.

 

yah thats what its really looking like... Im gonna get a 70,000 mile trans delivered to my house for $250 with a 6 month warranty this thursday... If it does end up being something external at least i have a lower mileage trans in there. Ill probably tear into this one see how they go together...