[OldCarGuy]

1993 Caravan LE with the 3.3 engine and 41TE transmission-

A couple of weeks ago it dropped into neutral while cruising at 65 on the highway. I moved the gear selector into "N" and coasted to a stop, put the selector into park, turned off the engine, restarted, and went on my way again with no other issues. A week and a few hundred miles later the same thing happened, in the same order. Since I have had mysterious problems with the cruise control dropping out (and because it did not cost much money) I went ahead and replaced the input and output speed sensors. Since then, I can only drive it a couple of miles before it drops into limp mode and will not come out. When I turn it off and restart it tries to go into first but seems to slip a little, and then bangs into limp mode. When it does work, though, it is perfect, with no bad symptoms.

The trans was rebuilt about 45K miles ago, and at that time I also added a large cooler in front of the radiator- bypassing the one built into the radiator. The fluid looks perfect (has been changed twice since rebuild) and there were no metal shavings on either of the speed sensors. I have not dropped the pan yet to see what is in there.

Should I go ahead and replace the solenoid pack and see if that fixes it? It is about 40 miles to a dealership to get the codes scanned, and I don't trust any of the repair shops around here to give me the actual codes. I don't really have any experience with this trans, but have a lot of general mechanic experience.

Thanks for any advice!!

 

[TomQuick]

I don't know what years it applies to, but I remember reading something about the connectors on those speed sensors changing at some point. The gist of it was that the new sensors had a different connector than the old ones. The wiring harness would plug on to the new sensors, but the connections weren't reliable. There was / is a repair kit available from Chrysler which contains the newer style connector. I don't know if that has anything to do with your problem, but since you said it got a lot worse right after changing the sensors, it might be something to check into.

 

[OldCarGuy]

I thought about that also, but the ones that I took out were the newer design. I may replace the connectors anyway.

I was really wondering if the dropping into neutral is typical of bad solenoids, or more likely to be the wiring/sensors.

 

[TomQuick]

Hopefully someone with more knowledge of transmissions than I have will give you some insight here.

 

[OldCarGuy]

Maybe somebody else could help? Thanks!