[4R55E] Shifting funny, bad ground? (cross-post)

[Dude13450]

I posted this in the main 2G forum as well and not entirely sure if it's "illegal" to cross-post here, but here goes:

I hadn't driven my 96 Exp in over a week. I started it up to drive to my mom's today. Let it idle for a couple minutes to "warm up" and did the rest of the warm up by navigating through side streets until I got to the main thoroughfare of my choice. Noticed my windows weren't working during the warm up, and just out of curiosity, shut engine off and windows worked again. Restarted engine, windows still working. Went to drive up to my mom's house and made it about a mile before running into shifting issues.

Car was a little hesitant to roll under power (much like clutch slippage on M/Ts) up until about 10mph, transmission went to shift and RPMs just dropped. I was accelerating at roughly 2200RPM and when it was time to shift the RPMs dropped all the way to 700RPM (and felt like engine was going to stall) before launching back up to 2200-ish RPM. It did that EVERY TIME the tranmission went to shift. I pulled over to check the tranny fluid (at this time, engine was at operating temp). I filled it back full (about 1/2 of a quart). Adding fluid helped a smidge but ultimately same behaviour.

I find it hard to believe that my transmission went out on me after only about 2 miles with it only being .5 quarts low, especially when it hadn't been driven in a week (which the last time it was driven it drove perfectly).

I had a Jeep Cherokee that did something among the same lines and it turned out that the electrical system was going haywire because of some frayed wires on my alternator loom.

Combined with the previous Jeep's experience and the weird window failure, my initial thought was a bad ground.

Your thoughts?

No CEL, No O/D light flashing. I do have both my 4WD lights on, but that is more than likely because I have done a 1354M transfer case swap on and the GEM is a little pissed off that it's not detecting all the electronics.

 

[Dude13450]

Could it possibly be valve body gasket?

Absolutely NOTHING????! Really?

I did have a random thought after reading about how the valve body gaskets were notorious for blowing out on mid to late '90s Explorers/Rangers. Could it be my valve body gasket and the window issue is separate entirely? I read that a cracked (or missing chunk from the) gasket causes slippage like hesitation as well as funky shifting patterns (or failure to shift entirely).

I did a check around the engine bay and undercarriage, no frayed wires whatsoever. In fact, 90% of the wires are in remarkable shape and really clean for their age (& I can tell that they have not been messed with or replaced). No bad grounds anywhere except for my aftermarket foglights that were installed by one of the POs but that is completely separate wiring "harness" from the rest of the car.

 

[Dude13450]

I also want to mention that to get a "decent" acceleration, I have to be AT LEAST 2500 RPM. Anything below and it takes FOREVER just to get to 20mph. That could be tranny slippage but could it also the sign of a bad valve body gasket?

I also want to mention that it has happened ONLY a few times that when I go to accelerate that the car only moves about 5 to 10 feet and then "slips" out of gear entirely and to correct this, I usually have to switch to park and then back into the gear of choice. This usually only happens when it is the first start of the day or after a few hours of cool off, IF IT HAPPENS. It has only happened 3 times in 400 miles, the first two were probably because the VSS was disconnect from the t-case.