Help with tranny diagnosis

[bsford]

I lost gear engagement (or at power transmission from the motor to the rear wheels) a couple times this morning, about 5 minutes after start up. I would estimate my speed to be 25 mph or less.

Go to turn the corner, and just rev'd up. Took my foot off the pedal for a second, felt it go into gear, and no problems.

This is a 96 5.0L w/ AWD, automatic transmission. I've have the tranny flushed 3 times over its 110,000 mile life. Don't tow or do much off roading.

What's worst case? Are there some simple things I could check?

I'd really like to keep her another 100K but the missus doesn't like the idea of me driving the little ones around in a "ticking timebomb". Can anyone help? Thanks.

 

[Alec]

Welcome to the site!

Sorry if I don't understand, but did this only happen at one corner, or multiple times?

 

[bsford]

Clarification

No, it happened a few times in the first few minutes of operation. Just trying to give you a bad visualization, I guess.

I had a similar occurrence a couple months ago, where I backed out of parking space, put it in Drive and it just rev'd. I put it in Neutral, then back in Drive and all was fine.

Thanks for the quick response. Any suggestions?

 

[Alec]

Hopefully it's not something major. It can either be a computer hiccup (not likely) or a faulty part in the shifting system of the tranny. I don't think it's the torque converter unless you have some strange tranny behavior on the highway. I don't know these trannies really well, but it may be something like a modulator or valve body.

Hopefully someone with more experience will chime in.

 

[SVO LOU]

I had an old AOD transmission that did what you described only during turns. Turned out the trans. fluid was low enough to not be picked up due to centrifugal force. Just added fluid and everything with the world was good again.
Hope your fix is just as easy.

Lou.