[Alan Roehrich]

The reason I say what I said is this. A PowerGlide has a band for low gear, and clutches for high gear. Rarely do you see either fail suddenly, and you usually just get slippage under power. It will usually slip in one gear, and not the other, and they just won't hold, rather than jerking as described.

The planetaries will fail suddenly, especially the stock planetaries, and more so if the input shaft being used is not a torsional shaft.

The converter could also break suddenly, and broken pieces may cause it to jerk as described, when they bind up. It may also overheat the fluid and make it smell.