AW4 dead... any suggestions

So driving 6 hours away destroyed my transsmission, it is totally non responsive. all gears became nuetral as it started slipping on the thruway. fluid was burnt and it deffinitly overheated. let it cool off checked fliud and added just a bit.. drove another 30 miles and Vroom lost it... reverse worked so there i am 2 in the am driving in reverse on the thruway just to get off... and VROOM lost that gear... towed and now in the garage wondering were to begin.. of course fluid drain and fill but made no difference. its as if there is no tranny there no weird noises or any leaks.. fluid was just burnt and no loss so def no leaks anywhere. linkage is good. its a 96 with the newer connection... i have a aw4 from a engine swap from a 94 cherokee. so i started disassembling it to just swap that in.. but it has no torque converter... so if i get there im definitely going to find a converter to stick there but whats the likely hood that its just the converter... or is there anyway the electronics fried somehow and a new setup mechanically does nothing to help the issue...

my thoughts is to just change the converter and see what happens before i mess with splicing the older transmission harness if that even works.. my reasearch is mixed and says it works some says it does but not proper.

thanks for any input on this situation

Your clutch packs might be toast or your torque converter.

The AW4 is not that hard if you feel like opening it up you can take a look at the clutch packs and make your decision.

What ever you decide put a new torque converter in and don't reuse the old one.

ic ic, going to look at someone who has a newr tranny setup that will deff work easyiest but would love to hear that the older tranny will easily splice in and work to save $$$... from someone that knows its been done and not a should work or might work kind of answer its a ddriver and need it to putt around asap i hear great things about the aw4 reading alot of stuff and spending hours researching hoping the next one will be a champ

From your description I would say the slush box is finished.

However, you said you did "drain and fill". The capacity of the transmission and torque converter together is about 14 quarts--how much of the burnt fluid did you "drain and fill"? Without enough fluid, and that fluid in proper condition (not burnt), your slush box won't work. Dex III is good for 30k miles MAX. If overheated by 20 degrees that life is cut in half--15k miles. How many miles since your last COMPLETE flush?

Usually first, but this time last, with any electronically controlled transmission you should unplug the TCU and try shifting it manually to determine if the problem is electronic or hydraulic/mechanical in nature.

ALSO--there is a cable that runs from the throttle body down to the transmission. IT IS NOT a kick down cable. It has jack to do with kicking down the transmission when passing/under load. What that cable--called the throttle PRESSURE cable--does is it varies the amount of hydraulic pressure from the transmission pump that is supplied to the valve body/brakes/clutches in the transmission. Have you adjusted that cable lately?

it was 4.5 to 5 quarts that was drained and filled... i have not adjusted the cable you refer to. i thought it would be a kick down cable not a pressure regulating cable so i did not look at it in detail... i just picked up a aw4 for 100 bucks with the torque converter, wire harnesses, and the cable in great condition, even took the hoses off of the cooler, i looked around and everywhere else had no converter and cut all the harnesses off + wanted more$$. the connector on the pass side is diff as its from a 94 xj but im told it will splice in and be perfect...

so here goes.. ill check the cable, im thinking ill look at how it works and adjust its tension to see if it seems to do anything beneficial.

im 99 percent sure that its not going to do anything, so ill pop it out and put in the older one that deff works. (in the older jeep)

any info on how to adjust that cable and kick me in the shin if the 94 electronics deff do not splice in to the 96 with obd2... but at this piont im thinking ill just go back and ask for the electronics that it connects to and do it the run around way.. ahh never getting auto again... love manual... but dont have time or money to find all the ax15 parts

thanks

Cable: http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1015963

96 into a 94 shouldn't represent any issues, IIRC.

Did you by any chance check for codes? My AW4 is gone too (I believe), and no CEL was present, but it gave me a replace solenoid code. I did that, but it didn't help so now I'm trying to decide what to do myself.

doing a tranny swap is not crazzy hard its just big work i was told you can disconnect the computer and it will drive manually if not then its a mechanical problem how you go about disconnecting it im not sure... probly the plug that you can follow on the driver side up i believe there is 7 wires on it, the plug on the passenger side is the nss nuetral safety switch. im a tad impatient when something big like this goes. To fiddle with something that fails till it works again can be way too time consuming and let down in the near future, i try the basics and if dont get anywhere i hunt on craigslist and been lucky with anything that i have swapped into friends jeeps but was manuals so auto is very new to me.. had a friend rebuild there nv3550 and failed again... cheaper then the parts i hunted him one down and its been great for a few years and continuing... just do some detective work and feel good about the parts you take home.

always start at square one and dont assume anything ahead... check fluid level and condition if bad then do a flush, i did not try that just a drain which def wont do anything as i learned capacity is 14 quarts and a simple drain replaces just 5. then of course leaks are a concern if the level was low. disconnect the computer so it runs off pressure. i heard changing the filter was a good thing to do but im guessing you had to do that for a solonoid swap. i had high miles and no maintenence on mine so i started unbolting it as i had a tranny sitting around that deff works.

ill keep update on how the swap goes so far just the two external torx bolts are on.

thanks for the link and info good luck with yours

94 into 96 is a bolt up and go, should be fine, don't think you'll even need to splice anything. 94 into 97 would be a different matter, minor splicing needed, and 94 into 98 or later is a total no-go.

Sounds like it's toast to me. Similar thing just happened to me this morning, I'm hoping I am low on fluid or maybe just need to clean junk out of the pan that is getting sucked against the pickup screen and killing hydro pressure, but fear for the worst.