97 T&C tranny

[EricinTN]

Yesterday I had the whole family in the van heading to grandma's house for Easter. I had the cruise set to 70 when the tranny shifted into passing gear for about a minute without going back into OD. Then it acted like it went into Neutral and the engine screamed up to about 5000 rpm. I coasted to the side of the FWY and then tried to get it to shift into any gear with no result. I had it towed home.
This morning, I put it into D and it will move forward (I only did this long enough to pull into driveway so I don't know how long it will go). It makes a horrible racket when shifted into reverse and won't move. Any ideas about what is wrong?

Also, we've had the check engine light come on a couple of times over the last week, but it turned off after a while. Is there a way to check the error codes without a scan tool on this vehicle? (The on-off-on-off-on method works on my '01 Dakota, but doesn't do anything on the T&C).

[jsinton]

The symptoms indicate the prognosis is not good, doctor.

[Rawtorque]

The passing gear part sounds like it went into limp in mode, but then going into neutral is real bad. The grinding noise is even worse. Something is probably broken inside the transmission.

[EricinTN]

I don't know what's broken in the transmission, but my bank account is about to be. Torque converter failed, clogged up filter, gears lost lubrication....kablooie!

[jsinton]

So did you have the old one rebuilt, or did you replace it with another one?