Dodge Caravan tcc not releasing

My vehicle is a 95 Dodge Caravan with a 3.3 engine and the 41TE
transmission. It has about 145000 miles on it, and has never had any
major repairs

On a recent trip a couple of days ago, after about an hour of driving,
the transmission started to show symptoms of the torque converter
clutch being stuck in the engaged position. The engine would stall
after some shuddering when coming to a stop unless I shifted it into
neutral. On start-up it was evident that the tcc was still stuck on.
I had to rev it a little, then drop it in gear to start or the engine
would stall.I also noticed that when coming to a stop, even in
neutral, there would be a noticeable thump at about 7-10 mph,
presumably when the transmission downshifted, and sometimes shuddering
around 20-25 mph.This continued for the rest of my trip, which was
about 200 miles.

Today I took the van out for a short drive and it appeared to be
operating normally. I'm planning to do a fluid change, since the last
one was about 30000 miles ago. Is there anything else basic that I
could do? Also, I'm thinking this could be heat related since the
trouble occurred on a warm day after a few miles. Does this sound
likely? Might a cooler help?

With the miles on this van, I think the trans is likely quite worn,
so to stave off a rebuild, I might try to simply disable the tcc. I've
found a web site with instructions on how to do this, with appropriate
warnings and disclaimers:
http://www.allpar.com/fix/torque-converter.html Any opinions or
experiences with doing something like this?

Thanks for any help or suggestions,

Tim B

 

Yes. If the trans computer is finned, get it flashed by the dealership
with the latest firmware. There's been significant changes in firmware
for this trans since 1995. If not finned, get a new trans computer.
All non-finned trans computers are non-flashable. Updating firmware
alone might solve your problem.

Think of it this way, would you run a PC computer on Windows 95
with absolutely no updates whatsoever? Microsoft came out
with Win95 version B, plus a whole host of security updates,
before ending the support lifetime of that product. Your vehicle
transmission computer is no different.

And, if and when the day comes that the trans goes kaput and
needs rebuilding, they are just going to reuse your trans computer,
so it's not wasted money on a firmware update.

Ted

 

Thanks for the reply Ted. I'll look into this.