Stalling in gear

I have a 95 SW2 that came into the shop stalling when you put it into gear (Drive or Rev.). The only way to get the car to move is to keep the RPMs up with your right and operate the brake with your left foot. No codes (as of yet), and the engine runs like a champ in Neutral. Any suggestions?

the two most common problems with the saturn transmission are a dirty valve body resulting in a harsh shift into reverse and a loose input shuft nut resulting in a hard and delayed shift in to drive and reverse.

stalling when shifting into gear sounds like a stuck on TCC, will it shift into gear with the drive wheels jacked off the ground?

when you can get it into gear, is it a hard shift or gentle?

Thanks for your reply.

No delay or harsh shift into reverse. It's not acting anything like the standard bad upper valvebody or loose imput shaft nut problems. It will go into drive or reverse with the wheels off the ground, but once the wheels are stopped the engine stalls. It's acting just like a manual transmission if you tried stopping the car while in gear without pressing the clutch pedal.

One thing I should have also mentioned is that this seems to be an intermittant problem. I had initially thought of a bad actuator, so I ran the operational (audible) test using the Tech 2 scantool, but all 5 actuators seemed to be in good working order.

I am suspecting a bad Torque converter, but I have no way to verify that is the cause, and I am really not in the habit of throwing parts at a car based on a hunch. Any clues or tips would be greatly appreciated.

Thx

Just to update:

I went ahead and pulled the trans out to get a look at the Torque converter and the input shaft seals. Much to my delight, I found a few small strips of chewed up metal on the input shaft after I pulled off the converter, and also in the converter itself. Looks like what used to be a crush sleeve of some sort. I slapped in a new TC, and so far so good....no more stalling.