Reverse acting like Neutral on D1

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Dec 24, 2017 | 03:28 AM

Loverface

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Overlanding

Joined: Sep 2012

Posts: 16

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From: San Diego, CA

Reverse acting like Neutral on D1

Hello peeps! I will try and keep this post as short as possible, but it is a doozy. A few things about my D1: it is a 1998 with an auto transmission and has just under 176k miles on it. It is not my daily driver, so for the last 2-3 years, the length of time between drives has been from 1-2 days to 1-2 weeks. Here is a fairly accurate chronological list of symptoms:

About 4-5 months ago, I was driving 15-20 mph down my street and heard a cracking/popping noise like I drove over something or like something fell off my undercarriage. I stopped and looked for debris, but found nothing. I then parked the car and didn’t drive it again for a couple days.
Within the next few times of driving the car, it would start to act up by not shifting through the gears properly. Each time I came to a stop and tried to take off again, it would act as if the car was in 4th gear. Shifting manually from 1st to 2nd to 3rd to D would work fine. Sometimes shifting from D to R and then back to D would “ca-chung" it back into normal operation – at least for anther stop or two. The “ca-chung” as been there since I bought the car about 40k miles ago.
In these early stages, I would notice that colder weather would have less of a negative affect than warmer weather.
Also within this first month or two of acting up, it went through a phase of making a metallic rattling noise while driving. I no longer hear this noise.
Eventually it would not shift from D to R while at a standstill at all. I would have to get the car rolling and then it would usually pop into gear. This made parallel parking suuuper fun (haha). Revving the engine while it was in the failing gear would also usually get it to catch.
I checked the tranny fluid and it was brown, but not looking or smelling burnt and there were no visible metallic flakes. It was also about 1.5 quarts low, so I topped it off. I didn’t notice any immediate improvement.
2 days ago, I was feeling froggy, so I decided to take her for a long trip (about 120 miles) with plenty of freeway and elevation gain. She was great through the first half hour and I decided to grab a quick bite to eat. I made the mistake of not parking in a spot that I could just pull straight through when it was time to leave and she would not go into reverse at all. I tried rocking her and revving her and had no luck. The reverse lights would come on the back, but it would not catch the gear. Revving her while in R was just like revving her while in Neutral. I put it in N and tried to push her backwards enough for me to make the turn out of the parking spot, but even though the shifter was in “N”, it would only rock back and forth like it was in a gear. Weird. The most embarrassing thing was, I had to ask for help from a Jeep owner and they were able to pull be backwards out of the spot enough to make that turn. The rest of the trip I shifted manually from 1 to 2 to 3 to D and she did pretty great, and I made sure to park where I wouldn’t have to reverse again. I noticed that if I put it in “D” at a fairly low speed (20-30mph) the RPMs would pulse up and down, but this wouldn’t happen at higher speeds.
I just now went out to check the tranny fluid and it was about 1 quart low again, so I topped it off. I looked underneath and didn’t see much leakage on the asphalt, but maybe it was leaking a bit during the excursion. I then took it around the block a couple times and I had zero luck trying to get her into Reverse at all. Also, when I put her into Drive at a standstill, the RPMs plummeted and it felt like it was going to die, but it didn’t.

Ok, so I know I need to replace the tranny filter ASAP, and I know tranny’s can be tricky and have a lot of variables, but I guess I am hoping you guys will tell me this sounds like a classic bad tranny filter and replacing it will solve all my problems. Is that too much to ask for for Christmas? Haha… Do you guys think a bad filter is the best bet, or do you think my tranny is on its last leg?

Thanks for any advice/expertise you all can give! - Jordan