Good afternoon all.
I have a 1996 Jeep Grand Cherokee Larado, 4.0. I have over 300,000 miles on my "Jeepster", I love and and have been blessed with the care of it. I have (so far) Of course kept the oil and filter changed regularly, replaced both front and back shocks, replaced both front wheel bearing hub assemblies. New exhaust system up to the manifold, replaced the trac bar. New plugs, wires and distributor cap, rotor, and serpentine belt, brakes and tires.
With all that I have replaced I still have that, front end shake when I get up to a certain speed that causes the whole Jeep to shake until i slow down enough, I today have replaced the trac bar and front shocks with the hopes of resolving the "shake" problem to no avail. What do I do now?
James

 

thanks for no harsh words, i noticed i was in wrong place after i posted(too many coronas)
but i have the red tail lights

 

jruggles, there are other things that can cause a wobble. Check your ball joints, steering link ends, steering box backlash and mounting bolts. Even tire balance comes unto play. I would suspect the ball joints are the major factor.

notabrightcrayon, you can try replacing the multifunction (turn signal) switch. It looks like you're not getting power to the turn signals except thru the brake light circuit. Why this happens only after the airbag light comes on is a mystery to me. I WILL say that the airbag light comes on if the circuit to the airbag firing squib becomes interrupted. That goes thru the steering wheel clockspring.

 

I am having an issue where my 2002 grand cherokee keeps locking and unlocking itself. It kills the battery and then i am stuck. Any ideas what could be causing me this headache?

 

I have a 2007 GC that won't start after a 100 mile trip. It turns over but no start. If you press the throttle it will start and run fine? Throttle position of IACV?

 

Help! Five months ago my '97 Cherokee Laredo went into limp mode. I've long-ago gotten my money's worth from this car... bought it new and have driven over 230,000 miles... so I was trying to keep repair costs low.

A former Jeep dealer mechanic/friend of mine replaced the (4617210) solenoid, the (56027562) transducer and the filter, but that did not fix the problem.

Next I took the Cherokee to a well-respected local garage who read codes and said I needed to replace the ECM. I purchased a (pre-programmed) ECM online from FlagShipOne... huge mistake... first unit D.O.A., second unit "alive" but still did not fix issues.

Garage recommended I replace the transmission. At that point, paying $1,500.00 or more for a Jasper didn't make sense so I found a salvaged trans. (clean fluid, no obvious signs of damage or unusual wear). Garage swapped trans. but car was still in limp mode.

At garage's recommendation I went to dealer to have the FlagShipOne ECM flashed. This did not fix the problem and dealer said ECM was the culprit. Purchased new OEM ECM from dealer, which fixed everything except had no 4th gear.

At this point, I had dropped over $1,000.00, so the new plan was to dive the car minimally and gently until I could figure out why I had no 4th gear, do whatever I had to do to get the problem fixed and keep it running for at least another year or two. But two weeks later the replaced trans. completely gave out, leaving car stranded, not going into gear and sounding like gears were stripped.

Fortunately, I did have the foresight to save my original transmission and I found someone willing to help me (or rather let me help him) do a rebuild.

My original transmission appears to be in really good shape, so the plan now is to complete the rebuild and re-install with the hope that the salvaged transmission was also the reason I have no 4th gear after the OEM ECU was installed.

Does this sound like I'm (FINALLY) on the right track?

Is there anything specific to the original trans. internals that could have caused the original limp mode that I should be looking for?

Sorry for the long description, but I figured complete info. would save a lot of questions.

 

Hey man, just to confirm, this is a Grand Cherokee (ZJ) you're talking about right? Not a Cherokee (XJ).... You've posted in the Grand Cherokee ask the question thread, but you called it a Cherokee twice... so I want to make sure. The fact that you said "Cherokee Laredo" makes me believe you are in fact talking about a ZJ... 'cause I don't think they made the Laredo trim on the XJ past 96.

That being said, it sounds like a rebuild of your original transmission is the right path at this point... I don't know much about the ZJ transmissions to be able to answer your question though.

I'm sure the guys here will want to know which motor you have as well.

 

Sorry... I guess it would help to have the specifics. My problem is with my 4.0 / 6 cyl. 1997 Grand Cherokee Laredo with a 42RE transmission.

(I also used to have a Cherokee Sport, and I'm just refer to them as Cherokees.)

 

Do you have engine braking when descending hills or downshifting? If not, the overdrive clutch has broken it's snap ring. This you can usually find as 2 pieces in the trans pan to verify. The O/D unit can be repaired by unbolting it from the rest of the trans after you remove the t/case.

First look for that snap-ring. If it's broken, we can give you precautions on how to remove the unit without releasing that 600 lb spring inside it!

OR you can use the O/D unit from your other transmission.

 

My original trans. (the one I'm rebuilding) never lost overdrive... the loss of overdrive was in the (salvaged) replacement trans. I may rebuild that later but I need to first get the car back on the road. When I get to that point, I will DEFINITELY be asking for pointers on how to deal with the 600 lb spring!

The only symptom I had with the original transmission was the car going into limp mode.

We haven't taken it completely apart yet, but so far my original transmission shows absolutely no signs of internal damage.

 

What I'm saying is if the O/D unit in the salvaged trans is bad, you can get your jeep back on the road by using the O/D unit from the original trans, then rebuilding the salvaged unit for your original trans AT YOUR LEISURE.

The best way to remove a unit with a broken snap-ring is to (one at a time) replace the 4 bolts that mount it with 6" pieces of threaded rod with nuts. Then loosen them evenly until the spring is relaxed. The only internal thing that connects the unit to the trans is the park lock rod which you disconnect from the shift quadrant beforehand. This method was used and posted by a member and I thought it was brilliant!

Before you go tearing into it, make sure the snap-ring IS broken. It could be the overdrive solenoid or the temp sensor. The overdrive and convertor clutch solenoids are together in a pack mounted on the valve body and includes the temp sensor. The sensor measures the temp of the trans fluid and won't allow it to shift into O/D if the temp is below 32*F or above 220*F. It's just a resistor and could be bad. Likewise the O/D solenoid could be burnt out or the wiring at fault. Then there's the O/D lockout button on the stick or dash and the TCM.

Bottom line, 3rd gear is 1:1 direct and the engine will run at 3000 rpm all day without problems. All this information is contained in the Full Service Manual from pacificcoastmanuals.com for $8. It's a downloadable 93mb compressed pdf file that's year specific to your jeep and is the BEST reference source I've ever found. It's a copy of the Factory Service Manual used by dealer techs.

 

I was thinking it would be better to work with my original transmission since I've had that since new (and I don't know that history of the salvaged trans.) but you make a good point.

Thanks for the great info.!

 

OH...WAIT! I'm mistaken. The original trans was good except for being in limp mode, correct? After a reflash everything was fine except no O/D, correct?

Unless I'm still confused, this still sounds like an electrical problem. I'm going to have to think about this a bit.

 

Yes, except that the salvaged tranny was installed before the (OEM) ECM was put in, so I don't know if that was the fix for limp mode.

 

My question is, I just got a grand Cherokee used and off the lot. I went for a test drive and when I was going in reverse
I turned the wheel all the way to the right and stepped on the gas and it turned off. What would be the issue to that problem?