Cylinder Head Gasket needed replacement upon purchase.
Back door lock malfunctioned.
Front brakes needed replacing.
This is one tough little truck. It's perfectly suited to my needs which include short jaunts in and around town. Yes..it's noisy and gives a pretty harsh ride, but for the money it's a steal!! Not to mention it's unerring reliability even at 13 years old!!
The one problem I seem to have is that I don't think that 4WD engages (at least not as I had expected). In winter, I don't sense that any power is transferred to the front wheels and it's pretty easy to spin this truck as the rear wheels slip quite easily.
Can anyone comment on this?
Make sure the hubs are locked up.
Lock your hubs before you put it in 4 wheel drive.
If you have the OEM manual hubs, they may be worn out. I replaced mine with Super-Winch hubs which are much less expensive and far more reliable than OEM because they have a positive lock gear rather than being spring loaded.
I just purchased a 1990 Tracker because of a head gasket leak. When I went to remove the head bolts I found they were not very tight. Maybe only 10 ft/lbs. The result was combustion getting into the water jacket and blowing the water out of the radiator. I replaced the head gasket, but I didn't find any thing wrong with the old gasket so may have been able to just tighten the head bolts and been fine. If anyone else has head problems they may want to check the head bolt torque before replacing the had gasket.
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