I have a '96 Cherokee 4.0 Auto. It's been around the block a few times with different owners and stuff. It's had a rough life and a friend of mine that used to own it did a motor swap.

I'm a little confused with the shifter that's in. Every 90s cherokee I've seen or driven, and I know of A LOT of them, has selections P, R, N, OD, D, 1-2. My indidcator is broken and you cant read the lower letters/numbers so I'm not sure what it should have but the shifter positions are different than the indicator, and it seems to have only OD and D. No 1-2 or low. The lowest position operates 1st, 2nd and 3rd, and the next position shifts into OD. I assume my cherokee should have the AW4 and this is just the wrong shifter? I would like to be able to hold 2nd with the 1-2 position then wire in a switch to hold 1st when I want.

Any info would be appreciated.
Thanks

 

Pictures might help. Starting to think someone swapped the trans on you. Or linkage is messed-up. How many positions will the shifter do count them. Shift at the trans directly, does it reach all the correct positions that way?

By the way you want the electric 1/2 lockout so that you can hold second, it will hold first as is till 4500 rpm.

 

My '97 auto transmission reads "P R N (D) 3 1-2"

 

I don't think the trans is swapped. 99% sure it's an AW4. Linkage might be messed up but everything seems to work perfectly after i asjusted the park safety switch. It's just missing the low or 1-2 position. I dont want to set the switch up to hold 2nd i want that to hold 1st for crawling and use the shifter to hold 2nd.

 

pictures of what you are talking about will help a lot....

 

Hmm. Trying to think of how I could take a picture to demonstrate the problem.

Normally there should be 6 shifter positions. P, R, N, D, 3, 1-2. My indicator looks to have those positions, but my shifter will only go to 5 positions. P, R, N, D and 3. In the lowest position it shifts 1st through 3rd, then click it up and it goes into OD, up one more time is neutral.

I'm wondering if it could have a shifter out of an older 3spd Auto or something like that.

 

The 1-2 position in the '96 AW4 should only allow 1-2, D should allow 1-2-3,and OD allows up to an including OD. Yes, you should be able to move to P-R-N-OD-3-1/2.

My '96 seems to have a TCU issue, so I'm manually selecting 1/2 to pull out and upshifting to 3 at 2500rpm or so.

 

Exactly. That's why I'm so confused that mine does not have the 1-2 position. Mine has a similar issue when you're really hammering on it in mud or something and it gets hot it doesnt like to go into 1st. That's why I would like the switch to select 1st and I'd like to have the correct shifter so it won't go into 3rd in the mud if I don't want it to.