91 APV stalls when put into gear ?

OK here goes, my fathers 91 APV van with a 3.1 V6, was running just fine, but it had a coolant leak at the manifold just under the back of the TB. Went to turn the fitting out to ghange it and it just broke right off. :banghead: The only way to get to this darn thing, because theres just so much room under the hood of thiese vans, is to remove the manofold. I got the threads in the hole whare the fitting goes reemed out, and the new fitting put back in. Put the manifold back on, timed the distributer back up, the motor started right up and sounded like it did before it was tore down :smokin: but then it started to miss really bad, and i mean real bad :banghead: found out after removing the manifold again that one of the nuts that bolted the TB on, had gotten dropped down into the manifold, and got stuck between an intake valve and the intake port, and it bent one of the valves. :banghead: Its funny how nobody knows nothing when this kind of thing happens, because i had my father, brother, 17yr old, and myself working on it. So off came the heads, and the valve got ground back out, the heads were worped which took .010 to clean up. Hell i figured since i had it tore that far down, why not stick a timing chain in it aswell. Got it all together again, he got his heads done, head gaskets, manifold gaskets, new coil, new dist pu under the rotor, plugs @ wires, timing chain, valves adjusted, and new TB gasket. Got it all back together again started right up and sounded good. Drove good for about an hour, and it started to chug and it stald hard as if some on would dumped a clutch, which the van has a 3 speed auto in it. It would start right up again and stall hard when put into gear. Did this about 5 or 6 times and left it set for about 4 hrs, and it started right up, went into gear and i drove it home as if nothing ever happend. Got almost all the way back to the house and it did it again :screwy: what gives. In retro spect i remember that the plug for the TCC had been unpluged since last yr when my father unpluged it for what ever reason. And remember that the fuel pump use to have that whining sound when the key was turned on, but it doesnt do that any more. Could this be the fuel pump, or a hole in the fuel line doing this. (Please Advise)

...the plug for the TCC had been unpluged since last yr .)

DO you mean that now it is plugged back in? What you describe are symptoms of stuck TCC. One way to alleviate the problem is to prevent TCC from applying, hence unplug the connector...but stuck TCC can happen from the valve being stuck applied, so even disconnected, it can still be applied all the time. THis solenoid can be changed in place, but you have to see with your fingers..almost. See this:
http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=551757

But you seem to imply that it will not start anymore....or is there any specific reason why you mention you do not hear the fuel pump anymore ?

DO you mean that now it is plugged back in? What you describe are symptoms of stuck TCC. One way to alleviate the problem is to prevent TCC from applying, hence unplug the connector...but stuck TCC can happen from the valve being stuck applied, so even disconnected, it can still be applied all the time. THis solenoid can be changed in place, but you have to see with your fingers..almost. See this:
http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=551757

But you seem to imply that it will not start anymore....or is there any specific reason why you mention you do not hear the fuel pump anymore ? No the TCC was never got plugged back in, and it is still not plugged in at this time. My father ran around for a atleast a year with it unplugged. Its the little square sensor on the side of the tranny. I can go out into the gorage and it will start right up, even drive it dawn the road, just like i did last evening. As i explained before with the whining sound of the fuel pump, when we first started to work on the van we could here the sound when we tried to start the van several times. But after a while we noticed we couldnt her it anymore, wasnt sure why at the time. (So we pressed on) The van started just fine as you would expect it to, sounded ok to me. Drove it around awile, and ran fine. Then all of a sudden it started acting up, shut down. Start every time, but when i try to put it into gear, it would stall. Let it set awile, started it back up it went into gear this time and i drove it home. I was atleast 5 miles from home, and just before we made to the house it started wanting to shut down, but managed to get it back into the gurage.:banghead: :shakehead

A correction is in order, i pocked around some more and found that the TCC had been plugged back in by my brother, which was the problem. I took the van for a drive, and nothing. There werent any problems with it stalling anymore. Man what abrain buster :screwy: