32RH Transmission Woes

Emi Rose

New Member
Joined
Sep 24, 2020
Messages
2
Location
Kauai, Hawaii
Aloha~ Got my 2000 Wrangler in mid February, with a freshly rebuilt 32RH automatic transmission. Was Loving my Jeep till monday evening when on my way home it started slipping while humming along at about 50. Barely made it the next 2 miles home, and had to park her on the street cause there was no way we were making it up my driveway. Fluid is burnt, but still full, and tranny was knocking like a banshee. Waited till she was cold the next day & fired her up again to see what would happen, backed up my road a ways & then drove back down to my parking spot feeling her shift through the gears ok, but after running for less than 5 minutes, knocking again. Taking her in on Monday to see what the shop has to say, but looking for any ideas & advice about what's going on. Hoping to get away with not having to spend $2500+ on another rebuild (or new tranny cause i don't have much faith rebuilding this one again after it didn't even last 7 months/7k miles) Options are low out here on Kauai, but hoping i can find a wrecked jeep w/a good 32RH for cheap if the original one is shot, again. Tranny should have been warrantied for 1 year, but shop has told me they will not honor the warranty even though the guy i bought it from (who had the work done) called them. This jeep is my daily driver & I haven't even been offroading since I've had it. Any help, or questions I should be asking the shop is greatly appreciated. Thanks!
 
So might be a long shot but a similar issue happened with me. Started slipping on the highway, got it off and let it cool, and it would run again...shortly. The cause was a pin size hole in the trans cooler tube in the bottom of the radiator from what the shop told me (a place that specialized in jeeps and had seen this happen only a couple of times). As coolant heated up it would expand its way into the trans cooler line, then the opposite would happen as it cooled. So my trans was running on a mixture of coolant and atf. No bueno. It needed a full rebuild and I opted for a replacement radiator too.
 
So might be a long shot but a similar issue happened with me. Started slipping on the highway, got it off and let it cool, and it would run again...shortly. The cause was a pin size hole in the trans cooler tube in the bottom of the radiator from what the shop told me (a place that specialized in jeeps and had seen this happen only a couple of times). As coolant heated up it would expand its way into the trans cooler line, then the opposite would happen as it cooled. So my trans was running on a mixture of coolant and atf. No bueno. It needed a full rebuild and I opted for a replacement radiator too.
Thanks for the reply! The radiator was just replaced in September 2019, so i should hope that it didn't fail that quickly (although that's beginning to feel like a theme here). Did the radiator fluid look oily from the atf? My fluid looks normal still. I had a friend have something similar happen in his Nissan truck years ago, and need a new tranny & radiator. Will definitely make sure the shop checks into that on monday.
 
To be honest, I do not remember. It was close to 10 years ago and I was a dumb highschool kid who didn't pay attention to important little stuff like that. However, if you have a 1 year old radiator, I think that would rule this particular scenario out. My TJ is a 2002 and this happened in 2010 with the original radiator and ~120K miles at the time.
 
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