new to jeeps and transmission issues, plz some help

i been reading through the forums here bought an hour or longer, found some things similar, but not much help.

My Girl has a 1993 jeep grand cherokee laredo with the inline 6 and auto 4spd trans. It had sat for awhile not being used but now she wants to drive it again so i been working on it for her. The transmision is acting up, it has first and reverse solidly, will cook the tires on asphalt. but as soon as it tries to shift up it's like it "falls" out of gear, engine rev's freely and the car freewheels until you either mat it and it jumps back into first or you let it slow back down to normal 1st operating range. i did a fluid/filter change, no help. tried the key on-off for the codes, all i get is the #12 for the battery i just replaced and then the 55. The nearest dealer or transmission shop is 50 miles away :\ have searched through lots of forums and seen similar posts elswhere but no responces to them. Im pretty good with older trucks but have never had to mess with eletronic seloniods or tcm's before.
Any help you guys here can offer would be greatly appreciated

KamaZer0 said:

i been reading through the forums here bought an hour or longer, found some things similar, but not much help.

My Girl has a 1993 jeep grand cherokee laredo with the inline 6 and auto 4spd trans.

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That's probably why you didn't find much info - she's got a ZJ Grand Cherokee, not a 'regular' XJ Cherokee, which is what these forums are focused on. The ZJ in those years used the 42RE transmission (IIRC); the XJs had the AW4, which is a completely different beast.

Not saying you won't get help for it here - but the question really needs to go in the Other Tech forum since it's not for an XJ. You may also want to try NAGCA, the North American Grand Cherokee Association. They've likely got a much broader tech base for that vehicle.

Im pretty good with older trucks but have never had to mess with eletronic seloniods or tcm's before.
Any help you guys here can offer would be greatly appreciated

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When you did the fluid change, was there metal in the fluid? I've seen a couple of cases where metal shavings were gumming up the solenoids and causing weird shift behaviour, but don't know if that would apply to your tranny - it's just sort of a shot in the dark since none of the vehicles I've seen that on were Jeeps.

eeep! sorry, like i said, new to jeeps thanks for the info, i will try the nagca link.
And no, fluid was a bit on the dark side of pink, but no flakes and no burnt smell.
thanks mate

casm said:

The ZJ in those years used the 42RE transmission (IIRC); the XJs had the AW4, which is a completely different beast.

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Some 93 ZJs had the AW4 as they switched mid-year. I have one sitting in the driveway.

lawsoncl said:

Some 93 ZJs had the AW4 as they switched mid-year. I have one sitting in the driveway.

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True.

Could just be sticking from sitting for how long ? Dump a can of seafoam in there and run that for awhile, see if it frees it up. Also how badly is the linkage rusted up from sitting ?
Might want to get under there with a can of powerblaster and give the whole linkage area a good spraying, start working the levers/linkages.
Also depends on how comfortable you are working on auto trannies, I've never owned one but I've seen them taken apart and I know I'd want it on a tranny stand before I did anything more than drop the pan.