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:
Tim B