Having problems shifting gears, getting stuck between gears.

My 95 Jeep cherokee has for the past week been giving me problems when I am shifting it. This is off and on. I've stalled twice, once last Friday in the middle of the street. A policeman pulled behind me and insisted I get a tow to my mechanic, even though it was driveable.

I tend to have problems during the downshift, it gets stuck between gears it seems and eventually will slip into gear, sometimes it's taken close to ten minutes of trying.

My mechanic can't find a thing wrong with it on Friday, so I told him to keep it over the weekend and try again today. His assistant made it seem like I was doing it wrong, even though I've driven the darn thing for four years now, and even though I learned to drive on a standard. His suggestion was (since there wasn't anything wrong with the jeep) to turn the engine off, shift into gear, and then restart it. Now, if I had to do that (it didnt' work, I tried), wouldn't that in itself indicate a problem somewhere?

Today, I go into pick it up and my mechanic said while he was driving it around it finally did it for him. (he had problems getting it from third to second, but could get it from third to fourth, then try to start off in fourth~which is fun~) So he tells me I am probably looking at a transmission issue. That my options are to have a used transmission put into it, or a rebuilt one installed. The jeep has only 80K on it, has new tires/rims, and both an alternator and a radiator under two years old in it.

First of all, would you repair it? Who would you recommend to not take advantage of a female who is oh so broke, trying to support two kids on her own? Should I try to sell it? I have nothing saved that can go towards repairs or a new (used) vehicle right now. Since it is only happening off and on, is the worst that can happen is that I stall and block traffic for a while~while I sit there an grind the gearshift trying to get it into any gear? I've got my 10 month old with me probably 95% of the time when I am driving in it, and I'm out of service calls through AAA for the year.

It is a 4 cylinder.
New here, I was recommeded to this site by some fellow craig's listers who read the post I made on the board. Thanks for any insight.
I'm taking it into a local shop in the morning for a diagnostic test of the system.

i say look around on www.car-part.com for a used transmission.

can you think of anything else it might be besides the transmission? I'd love to trust my mechanic, but he also told me there was not a thing wrong with it, until it finally did it for him this morning. Then he agreed that something was wrong.

Is it difficult to get into gear, especially into reverse without grinding? If thats the case and you can't down shift, the clutch may not be disengaging -bad clutch master cylinder or slave cylinder (both) or oil on the clutch. Your tranny might need the topped off, changed or the trans is toasted. Anyway, do you know how to double clutch? Basically you want to take it out of gear, give it gas raise the RPM to what you expect it to be after the downshift based on speed(works better with a tach) then put it in gear and go. This equalizes the speeds of the input and output sides of the tranny so it will engage a lower gear more smoothly and the clutch won't be compensating (wear) for the difference in rotational speeds- its an earful I know...

That should work too. While driving, and you want to shift up (to a higher gear) just pull the shifter into neutral (no clutch) and hold pressure into the next gear as the RPM as dropping. When the drop low enough for that gear the shifter will "fall" into gear. You can do this to every gear. When downshifting, just do the same thing, but blip the throttle before you put pressure on the gear you want.

Something very similar to what you are describing happened to a friend's YJ a while ago, and it turned out to be the clutch master cylinder. The part was about $100, I think, and not too hard to swap.

My old comanche acted much the same way especially in our cold climate. The permanent fix which never caused any problems and driven for many kilometers, I drained the transmision and refilled it with automatic trans fluid. Some Ford transmisions actually have ATF installed in them from the factory. I know some will not like this idea, I used to own a transmision shop, we solved several binding worn transmisions by mixing about half and half gear oil and trans fluid it thinned the lube enough to prevent synchronisers from binding and this completely eliminated my grinding going into reverse. If you think the trans is shot give this a try, first.

my comanche did much the same thing, it was a clutch problem. Look around the clutch master cylinder for fluid. My 87 had fluid leaking down onto the big electrical conector and you could see it in the cab. If you've got a tach then you can shift the transmission at a 3:2 ratio. Go to 3K RPMs then shift up a gear whne the tach reads 2K. SHould slip in. The opposite is true for downshifts, start your downshift at 2K and rev the motor to 3K. I dorve like this for a day until I could replace my clutch master.

Is the fluid level low in the clutch master cylinder resevoir? If so, check under the vehicle on the driver's side of the bellhousing for leaking fluid (bad slave cylinder), or just to the left of the clutch pedal above the fuse box inside the JEEP (bad master). Your 1995 has an external slave cylinder, which is far easier to change than the earlier internal cylinder. Each part is less than $100, even at NAPA.

If you're not losing fluid, try changing the transmission oil for a high quality syntheitc gear oil like RedLine. Their MT-90 does wonders for the AX-15/AX-5 transmissions, capacity is 3.3 quarts.

Any competent mechanic can diagnose your problem and offer alternatives for getting your JEEP back on the road. It's likely your problem is fixable without changing transmissions, so if your mechanic insists you need a new transmission, do your own looking around or get another opinion. Good luck.

Have you thought about what kind of fluid you are using? I have a '91 XJ with an AX-15 (5-speed) tranny. When I put some synthetic 75W-140 oil in there, I had a really hard time shifting. Then, I replaced it with Redline MT-90, which is specially formulated for these "notchy" shifting trannies. Now, my shifting is smooth as can be ... a huge difference.

Hope this helps.