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44RE Transmission Issues (96 GC 5.2L)

8K views 4 replies 2 participants last post by  totaldrk62 
#1 ·
Long time lurker here finally posting because I've found something I can't fix reading through everyone's posts. Firstly, thanks to all the members of this great forum. I've been reading here for years and fixed countless things on my Jeeps thanks to the informative posts. With that said, my problem:

So my 1996 ZJ (5.2L, 44RE tranny) seems to be slipping in low gears at high RPMs. Going from a stop and accelerating I have to keep the RPMs fairly low otherwise it seems to slip into a neutral state before finding the gear. Sometimes I'll get a rubbing/humming noise and some shaking when it is slipping. If I let off the gas and try again it will typically find the gear and start moving. It seems to do this going from a stop to acceleration and slightly going from 1-2. 2-3 shifts a little hard but doesn't seem to slip much if at all. The ODB was giving me a P0711 and P0133 errors.

Things I've tried:
I bought the Jeep with around 60k on it. Regular maintenance had been performed on the vehicle and it was in great condition. I changed the transmission fluid right around 100k. The fluid was nice pink/red and clean and their was normal wear material in the pan. Around 126k is when I started having these transmission issues. I had a shop flush the tranny completely, which seemed to lessen the issue, but not get rid of it entirely.

As of late it has seemed to have gotten more pronounced. I replaced the upstream O2 sensor to get rid of the P0133 error. After reading on the forums quite a bit I went ahead and dropped the pan and replaced the governor pressure solenoid (went to Borg Warner), pressure sensor, output speed sensor, 3-4 accumulator spring (which was in fact broken), filter and gasket. I also installed a drain plug and then added the correct amount of ATF+4. Ran the vehicle in N with the e-brake on and made sure my fluid was at the correct level. After getting the fluid added (ended up being about 5.5 quarts) I drove it around a bit. It seems to drive a bit smoother but the issue still exists. I adjusted a TV cable a bit which seemed to smooth out the 2-3 shifts. I replaced the TPS per some recommendations but I'm still having the low gear high RPM slips. I also ended up adding a bottle of Lucas stop slip yesterday (removing some ATF+4 to keep things set to the correct amount) to no avail. The P0711 error hasn't popped up again but I've only been driving it for 2 days.

I'm sort of stumped at this point. I've read up on adjusting the bands but I haven't really found a good guide on how to do it so I'm hesitant on that. If anyone has any ideas on what else could be I'd be grateful. Thanks for reading.
 
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#4 ·
It sounds like the clutch packs can no longer grip well enough to catch under load. I am by no means a transmission mechanic but I know how the auto trans works in theory. I don't think any sensors would be at fault at this point.

I remember an old trick (that I have personally never used so take it with a grain of salt) is to put a quart or two of type F ford fluid into a slipping trans and see if it improves. I guess the theory behind it is that the type f has a lot of friction additive and should help a slipping trans.
 
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