96 Cherokee. Tranny fuild boiled over.

[72mino]

Sorry if this has been addressed before, but I'm on vacation and don't want to spend alot of time trying to track down the problem.

I have a 96 cherokee sport 4x4 auto 4.0.

The first 6-700 miles went fine, then after climing a hill/mountain on I64 in West Virginia I noticed we started leaving a trail of smoke behind us. Naturally I stopped, got passed by the smoke cloud and popped the hood. There was oil all over the back side of the engine on the passenger side, then I noticed it looked like it had run down the tranny dipstick. After that it seemed to be short on power and if I hit the gas too hard it would lock and unlock the torque converter (I think) and I couldn't accelerate at all.

Also it started missing again (see '96 Cherokee miss after HG change') so I'm going to check the plug again.

After stopping for a couple hours it seemed fine.

We were towing a small trailer, (cargo trailer made to be towed by a motorcycle) easily under 500#. I couldn't even tell it was back there.

Is there anything I can do to help it run cooler? (I'm staying with my cousin, so I do have access to some tools, not sure how many)

Did I likely do any permanent damage?

[72mino]

Plugs look fine. I forgot to mention that the cruise wasn't working right and the speedometer started jumping about 5 mph and dropping right back down when under a light to heavy load, not coasting, shortly after the tranny boiled over.

I did some searching b/c I woke up just after 2AM and couldn't get back to sleep. I'm going to try to check for vaccuum leaks. I do know there is a plugged vaccuum line near the battery, so I'm assuming that is supposed to go to the vaccuum canister I read about.

Any ideas would be appreciated. I'll post what I find if anything.


Dustin

[72mino]

I checked for the vaccuum canister behind the front bumper. It isn't there. There is a vaccuum line broken and plugged next to the battery. I'm guessing that used to go to the canister that is missing. Could that cause the cruise to be eratic?
I drove 5 minutes to the grocery store and it was missing like crazy. I was inside for maybe 30 minutes, drove back to where we are staying and it ran fine. Any ideas on what could be that inconsistant?

Please help. I have a 1000 mile drive home.

Dustin