I just brought my sister inlaw a 97 Avenger 2.5 v6 auto trans. The problem with the car is that in the morning after sitting all night the car won't shift into drive or reverse, it doesn't even make the racheting noise. After about 3 minutes of sitting in drive or reverse the car will go in gear and drive and instead of shifting into 2nd it goes into nuetral and as the rpms drop it will catch a gear and then start functioning normal. It only does this in the morning, after driving to school and then work it's good, only after an overnight park is when the trouble occurs. I dropped all the trans fluid out and added fresh ATF+4. It does have a leak needing about a quart a week and is drive 15 miles a day. Can it be the shift solenoid, the firewall relay. I don't have a clue. The car has 174,000mi.

 

The Ratchety sound is the solenoid pack

I'd say it sounds more internal passages plugged or restricted I'd try a tranny flush , Since you changed out some it still has old fluids in the torque convertor ect

 

Your right all I did was drop the pan and drained. When the car won't go in gear, the solenoids don't make the rachetey sound.

 

needs fluid pressure to operate , morning cold fluids too thick won't build pressure or bad pump

 

You'll need to pop a new tranny filter in too when you do a fluid change. If the fluid actually needs changed and you dont change the filter too, its almost pointless to change the fluid.