Chrysler Repair: Plymouth Voyager 1996 trans/cluster problens, soldering pencil, plymouth voyager

Question
My 1996 voyager is having transmission problems. When stopping at a light and taking off the van will jump very hard in to gear but never come out of second gear. Some times when this happens I will loose the gas gage and speed gage. To fix this problem I have to pull over to the side of the road and shut the van off and wait a min. then re start the van and go.I took it to a shop and they fix it for about a year. I was told it was the plug. What plug? Please let me know if you can help Thanks

Answer
Hi Frank,
The fact that the gas and speedometer go 'out' when the trans has a problem may be due to a fault in the socket where the instrument cluster attaches to the wires that come to it, which includes the data communication pair that also are involved with the transmission and engine, etc. That is called the data 'bus' and its wires are white/black and violet/brown. That is often a weak spot in the minivan. If you remove the cluster and examine the circuit board to which the multipin socket is soldered (one pin at a time) you may well find some solder joints (probably on pins 9 and 10) that have come open. Reheating the joints with a soldering pencil and a touch of electronic type of solder may correct this.
If not, then I would get a free readout of the bus for error codes using a code reader, at an Autozone parts store. An independent shop may charge $40. Get the code numbers and names and then write back with the results. If the codes have to do with 'communication' or data bus then that would corroborate the likely cause and its location at the cluster. Then entire system is tied together so when one part has a fault, it may affect other distaant parts that share the system information.
Roland
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