flashing O/D light

[Rolla91]

okay, a few days ago i was driving up a steep gravel hill in my 95 explorer eddie bauer 4.0. i started to spin so i stopped, and turned the switch to 4wd auto. after i did that i noticed that the O/D light started flashing which means there is a problem with the transmission, this scared me because i just bought this thing, and so i drove home and on the way there it down shifted very hard and when i got home i checked the tranny fluid and it was fine. i reset the compter to get rid of the light and it went away and never came back on. when the light went away so did the down shifting problem. any ideas on what the cause of this could be?
thanks

 

[TPLYNCH]

The tranny threw a code and went into "limp mode", that was why the shifting pattern changed. It is not all that uncommon, and the fix you performed is the first thing to do when it happens. If it happens again, try and get the codes pulled before clearing.