I would like to thank everyone who took the time to offer suggestions. I learned a lot about trouble shooting on this particular vehicle and in general. With the limited information I gave, all of your responses were valid and I appreciate your input. I checked many of the things suggested and followed the rabbit trail down to a few more.

The biggest problem ended up being my interpretation and description of what I thought was happening. To my defense it originally started with only the down shifts but the problem was not the transmission.

My solution ended not having anything to do with the drive train. Not sure why it initially started happening only as the transmission was about to down shift. The jolt was because of the engine cutting out for a split second then running again while the Jeep was under strain going up a hill. I had no idea that it would be that violent. I'm going to recheck my entire drive line for excessive play.

It progressed from being only on the down shift to also a rough idle and the engine missing under acceleration. Then to missing in almost any condition.

I checked the TPS and it was so slightly out of spec that I replaced it anyway. It made no difference. Today I was running diagnostics on the crank position sensor and it passed every one. There are thoughts that the resistance check only between two of the wires is not conclusive.

I go to look at the cam position sensor under the distributor cap and saw a few problems. Although the spark plug wires looked in good conditions from the outside the inside of the metal connections looked bad and two wires broke from the metal attachment to the plugs. The inside of the distributor and the rotor condition was, well I don't understand how it ran at all.

I replaced the plug wires, distributor cap and rotor. It now runs great.

What I learned.
I have a better understanding of testing sensors. While frustrating not finding the problem it was also nice to check off what wasn't the problem.

Check the basics first. There was a time I would have automatically checked the simple things first. A partial basic tuneup ended up being my answer without even replacing the plugs. I typed in my issue in a search engine and found great information for my situation. However I should have only done that after checking the fundamentals.

Thanks again everyone.

 

Thanks for reporting back! Glad you stuck with it and found the issue.