This article was meant to be a victory lap for me and my most recent automotive purchase. Initially titled “How I Turned A $700 Chevy Tracker Into A Respectable Off-Road Daily Driver For Dirt Cheap,” the piece was going to chronicle how this body-on-frame 4×4 was the deal of the century. I’d describe how I’d scored a soulful, mostly rust-free, manual transmission off-roader equipped with a low-range transfer case for an absolute song, and how the thing drove like a dream. But last night, just after I’d decided to hold the article for this morning, disaster struck, putting the kibosh on my victory lap. The fact is, given the latest setback, it’s clear that the Tracker was a mistake. Let’s look at how much I’ve sunk into this deceivingly-cute Suzuki.
[Editor’s Note: Oh boy. – JT]
I’ll be honest and say I knew the Chevy Tracker wasn’t a smart buy when I pulled the trigger on it earlier this summer. I’m trying to reduce my fleet so I can move to LA, and facts are facts: “Plus one” is not the same thing as “minus three” — it’s simple math. But this was a manual transmission Suzuki Grand Vitara AKA Geo Tracker AKA Chevy Tracker — a vehicle known for its off-road toughness, and fairly highly regarded in terms of reliability; for $700 bones, I figured I couldn’t lose. It seemed to be in decent shape overall, and there were tons of these machines in local junkyards, so parts would be plentiful and cheap. And while that has ended up being true, the expenses do pile up. Worse, though, is that the one thing I don’t have right now is time, and the Tracker is stealing every ounce of that from me.
Here’s What Happened Last Night
Before we get into the dollars and cents, let’s just talk about the disaster that struck last night.
I’ve driven the Tracker about 100 miles over the last few days, and it’s been great. It’s comfortable, and handles better than any of my other vehicles, with much sharper steering (since it’s my only car with a rack and pinion setup). I was quite pleased with my purchase until around 7 P.M. yesterday, when my dreaded charging issue resurfaced.
I’ve been battling this for quite some time now. Every now and then, I’d read 13.8 volts at the battery, indicating that the new alternator I had just purchased was doing its job. But then I’d drive around and my lights would go dim and my engine would start to sputter as the fuel pump and ignition system lost juice. I pored over wiring diagrams, checking every fuse and wire I could find that might have something to do with that alternator not putting out enough current to keep that battery from draining. Last weekend I stopped by the junkyard and snagged a daytime running light controller, as the wiring diagram indicated that it was tied into the alternator’s battery voltage sensing wire:
But this did nothing. I searched for other potential current draws by paying attention to which systems worked and which didn’t. Maybe if I found something that wasn’t functioning properly I could narrow down where in my electrical circuit the problem lay. What I discovered were two seized electric motors — and important ones, at that. The first one was my wiper motor; technically, it wasn’t seized — the wiper transmission was (that’s the linkage that turns the rotary motor motion into back-and-forth wiping action). So the motor was basically stalling, drawing absurd amounts of current when the wipers were on. Whether they ‘d been on while I was driving, I’m unsure, since they didn’t work anyway and I hadn’t paid attention to the switch position. I swapped the wiper motor and transmission from one I’d gotten from a junkyard for $30. This required some modification, because Chevy apparently made some running changes over the Tracker’s manufacturing span, but the job was fairly straightforward.
My friend Brian discovered that the electric “pusher” fan in front of the condenser was completely seized. This could also draw quite a bit of current, and could explain why I’d seen significant coolant temperature spikes during my short test drives. So — again, with a modification (to the connector) — I swapped the part with a new one I’d snagged on eBay for $70.
With the two stalled motors replaced, I began driving the Tracker, and it worked wonderfully. I took it to an old Chrysler engineering friend’s house on Sunday about 30 miles away, ate some ice cream, and drove to take care of some errands. There were no issues. I then washed the car in preparation for this article, because — again — the thing actually looks quite nice, and given how well it was operating on Sunday, I wanted to highlight how pleased I was with the purchase. It’s possible I was also going to applaud car culture in Michigan; “You can buy a car for $700, throw a few junkyard parts into it, and have a cool daily driver. What a place!” sounds like something I might have written.
But when I fired the Tracker up at the grocery store last night, it cranked rather slowly, and I immediately knew I was screwed. I understood what this meant; the alternator was no longer charging, and I had just a few minutes before the car would shut down. I rushed home, noticing that my turn signal dash lights were dimming; my airbag light began to flicker on and off, and my tachometer needle started going apeshit. My headlights were clearly dimmer than they should have been, and on the final half-mile stretch, when I hammered the throttle, the car began to sputter. I upshifted early to keep my foot off that rightmost pedal; this helped, but the car began bucking all the way until I pulled into my driveway. That’s when the car overheated.
“What the hell?!” I thought. “I fixed this charging problem, didn’t I? Also, the coolant temperature gauge looked fine!” I declared before realizing that nothing on my gauge cluster was to be trusted after that electrical meltdown sent the tach and airbag lights going bananas.
The problem, which I thought I’d solved with new fan and wiper motors, a new alternator, a new daytime running light module, and even a new $100 ECU, was still there. My heart sank, and I went to sleep. It felt like I was fighting an endless battle against invisible electrical gremlins, and I was never going to win.
Trust The Process
But this morning, with a clear mind, I reminded myself of one of the most important wrencher’s adages: “Trust the process.” That process refers to the diagnostic process, which is informed by your knowledge of how systems work. I knew that my engine had overheated. Why? And why did it happen at the same time that my charging system went bad? I’d figured that my previous overheating issues were a result of my electric fan not coming on, so maybe the drained battery wasn’t spinning that fan fast enough? “No, that doesn’t make sense,” I realized. The Tracker has a mechanical fan that kept the vehicle cool all day; at no point did the auxiliary fan fire up — why would it have to do that when it was colder in the evening?
That’s when it came to me; I knew what the issue had to be. Aside from the auxiliary fan that the Tracker clearly doesn’t need most of the time, the vehicle’s charging system and cooling system are connected in only one way: They’re both hooked to the car’s Front End Accessory Drive (or FEAD, as they call it in the industry). Oddly, though, I saw no issue there. The belts were all intact, and I noticed no slipping; in fact, the belts seemed to be in decent shape, with no melted bits or rips. This is where trusting the process came into play.
No, there were no issues with the belts, and looking at the accessory drive while the engine was running showed that the belts were turning. So this wasn’t an issue then, right? No, wrong — as I said before, I knew what the issue had to be. There are no other options; I know how this car works, and I know that somewhere on this accessory drive, something is screwing up both my charging system and my cooling system. Somewhere there is a problem. So I looked harder, and here’s what I found:
As you can see, the harmonic balancer/crankshaft pulley that uses belts to take the engine’s crankshaft work use it to spin a water pump, power steering pulley, alternator, and fan had failed. Yes, the balancer itself — which to a layperson looks like just a single-piece pulley — had split at its rubber junction (the rubber helps damp vibrations from the crankshaft). It was an essentially invisible failure. The naked eye cannot see the split, which is why the “trust the process” adage is so important. If you know how something works, then when it fails in a way that cannot be seen with the naked eye, you’ll have the confidence to say “I don’t care that I can’t see it. It’s there.”
A similar situation happened to me when I was driving my 1948 Willys CJ-2A cross-country to Moab back in 2017. I lost all compression instantly in all cylinders, and I knew this could only happen if there was a timing issue. But I looked at my timing gears and saw that nothing was wrong; even the timing marks on the crankshaft and camshaft gears were still lined up. I buttoned the Go-Devil engine back up and towed the vehicle; later, after some thought, I came back to the gears and told myself: “I know I don’t see anything, but this has to be it. The problem is somewhere here.” And indeed, I found a failure similar to the one my Suzuki is facing: The center of the timing gear became delaminated from the outer portion, meaning the crankshaft gear was spinning this camshaft gear, but the outer portion was rotating without spinning the camshaft that was keyed to the center section. My Suzuki has the opposite issue: The inside bit is spinning, but the outside pulley bit is not.
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So now I have to replace that harmonic balancer. This will require me to remove the radiator and use a puller tool to get the balancer off the crankshaft. This will probably be a pain in the ass. Why I bought an eBay crankshaft pulley that is a quarter the price of all other Suzuki 2.0-liter dampers I saw, I don’t know. But for $15, I figured I’d risk it. I’m a cheap bastard. Hopefully that doesn’t come back to bite me.
[Editor’s Note: History suggests it’ll be fine, just fine, with no problems at all, ever again, forever! Anywhere! – JT]
I Paid Twice As Much For Parts As I Did For The Tracker Itself
I really thought fixing the Tracker would be a cinch. When I arrived at the seller’s house earlier this summer, he told me the $1,600 SUV ran and drove great; it overheated every now and then and needed a jumpstart. This seemed trivial to a former cooling system engineer like myself.
The seller accidentally switched the positive and negative battery cables, frying the Tracker’s main fuse. Unable to prove the car ran, the seller told me he’d let it go as-is. I wasn’t sure exactly how much it would cost to fix whatever had been friend — it could have been the ECU for all I knew — so I offered $700. He agreed.
I had AAA tow the little body-on-frame off-roader to my house, and then — after a bit of research — I went out to find a part that would yield the cheapest fix of all time: the main fuse.
Indeed, the $5 fuse rejuvenated that 127 horsepower 2.0-liter inline-four. Just listen to that thing purr.
This is where I optimistically thought I’d just clean the car up and start driving it, but of course, this being a $700 shitbox, that’s not how things work. If one buys a car for under $1,000, there is a 99 percent chance that it will suffer from some kind of significant mechanical or electrical problem if not immediately, then certainly within the first week of ownership. That’s been my experience.
And of course, a soon as I went to test drive the Tracker for the first time, I realized that the vehicle was undrivable. It wasn’t just that the steering kept locking up (this was sketchy), but the lights began dimming while I was driving, and eventually the car started to sputter as the fuel pump went weak. The charging system was toast.
So I slapped in a new $46.50 eBay-sourced steering intermediate shaft, and that took care of my steering issue. As for the charging system, I threw $35 at a junkyard alternator, and when that didn’t work, I tossed in an $87 one I bought from Amazon. When that didn’t work, I threw in a $95 ECU, then the aforementioned $72 electric fan, then the aforementioned $37 junkyard wiper motor and transmission, and two $16 daytime running light modules (one was the wrong part).
I also replaced the awful tires with $200 junkyard tires that are quite nice. Add that price to the installation cost, and I was out about $350 on rubber.
I had to throw on new lugnuts after my old ones got stuck onto the lug studs, so that was another $20.
The Tracker had a lot of cracked interior trim. Based on the paint spots on the rear carpet, I think this thing may have been owned by a house painter. In any case, I replaced that rear carpet and much of the interior plastic trim; I think I probably paid about $60 for all of it.
The four-wheel drive system on these Trackers is far more complicated than it should be, as I described in my article about my ingenious fix to the electric front axle disconnect system. Before that Harbor Freight solution, I did buy two 4×4 controllers for about $15 each. So all in, my silly repair actually cost around $50.
I also had to install a new junkyard taillight. That cost me $20.
As for all the fluids — the engine oil (plus filter), transmission oil, rear differential oil, transfer case oil, and coolant — I probably dropped another $80. Add the vacuum I used at the local car wash, plus the car wash itself and all the cleaning fluids, and I probably dropped another $50 just to get this thing clean.
The cleaning operation happened after I fixed the dent on the rear quarter panel on the driver’s side:
My friend Brian came over with his Jeep Wrangler TJ Unlimited (also called the “LJ”), and we used his front winch to pull the dent out a bit.
From there, I tried my hand at Bondo body filler, which I’d never used before. First, I had to secure the taillight, and since it no longer lined up with the holes in the rear quarter panel, this meant strategic use of a drill and some zipties:
Next, I had to fill in the space between the quarter panel and the light. I know I’m going to get some shit from old-timers on this, but I just shoved a bunch of aluminum foil into the gap:
After not realizing that I needed to add hardener, and wiping the first layer of Bondo off, I mixed up the filler nicely and lathered it onto that foil, filling the gap. I then let the filler dry, sanded it, added a few skim coats, and then primed and painted it.
The result after clear coat is far from beautiful, but it’s better:
I spent about $80 on the body filler and paints.
Other than that, I removed the rear hitch and then tried using some special $10 compound to darken the gray front and rear bumper covers. It didn’t work as well as I’d hoped, but it’s now a bit darker. Honestly, I think the little Tracker looks great:
Note: If that gas cap door not closing bothers you, don’t worry: It bothered me, too. So I spent a few bucks on some rare earth magnets, and that took care of it:
Obviously, I still need to replace that crankshaft damper and all the belts that go with it (together, assuming my cheap eBay damper works, thats about $70 in parts). And I need to steam clean that interior, but otherwise I think the Suzuki is just about ready. Here’s the full cost roll-up so far:
| Chevy Tracker: | $700 |
| Taxes and Registration | $100 |
| Tires | $200 |
| Tire mount/balance | $150 |
| Lugnuts | $20 |
| Main fuse: | $5 |
| Steering Shaft | $46.50 |
| ECU | $95 |
| Alternators | $122 |
| DRL Modules | $32 |
| Electric fan | $72 |
| Wiper motor/trans | $37 |
| Interior trim | $60 |
| 4×4 system fix | $50 |
| Junkyard taillight | $20 |
| Fluids | $80 |
| Cleaning | $50 |
| Bondo and paint | $80 |
| Bumper restorer | $10 |
| Harmoic Balancer/belts | $70 |
| CV Axles | $80 |
| Water Pump | $25 |
| Total: | $2,105 |
Those last three italicized rows are parts I haven’t yet installed. I figure, since I’m doing the belts, I should replace the water pump. Plus, I noticed some cracked CV boots, so at some point those will need to be done.
In any case, I’ve dropped abut $2,100 on this car in total. Three times as much as the initial purchase price! Yes, I could have been a bit thriftier, but I had no time to waste; plus, with the balancer in and those axles installed, this really will be a decent little car. It won’t be worth much more than what I paid for it — it is a 176,000 mile Chevy Tracker after all — but I bet it will be a nice, reliable daily driver for whoever I sell it to in the next few months. After I off-road the everliving crap out of it, of course. Stay tuned for that.
[Editor’s Note: I’m not sure if I should have David read the comments here or not. Just know if you take this as an opportunity to kick a well-meaning wrencher when he’s down, I’ll be JUDGING YOU as well. I mean you can, and it’ll probably be fun, sure, but deep down you know you love that David does this shit, and owns up to his stumbles and failures, because, dammit, that’s how we learn. And I’m sure he’ll get this steaming pile of shit made into a steaming pile of drivable shit once again, because I’ve seen him do it. Don’t underestimate the Raja Of Rust. – JT]
Well it could be worse, think how the percentages would be if you had gotten that Tracker for free.
For what it’s worth I bought a Porsche for $900 that needed $10,000 to get running and then it spun its bearings and needs another 10,000 , and before that a Chevy convertible for $500 that needed a couple thousand., so I think you are doing fine.
By the way, that dent around the tail light would’ve been an excellent opportunity to learn how do use a hammer and a dolly to smooth out the metal work That probably wouldn’t of needed much Bondo at all. It’s really amazing how body work remembers the shape it’s supposed to be in if you just tap on it with a dolly underneath.
“wouldnt have”
Make America literate again
Except that what I meant was the contraction for “would have”, not the contraction for “would not have”.
“would’ve. /ˈwʊdəv/ Britannica Dictionary definition of WOULD’VE. — used as a contraction of would have. I would’ve picked you up from the airport if I had known you were coming.”
Also, wouldnt ought to be wouldn’t , note the apostrophe.
So, other than misspelling something that means the exact opposite of the correctly spelled* thing, I congratulate you on making your point on the sorry state of American literacy.
*Spelt in the English speaking world, but this is only American level literacy of which we are speaking.
Definitely sending this video to my IT technicians. It’s great advice.
Also, how do I get it to show my username and not my full name?
DT, did you try using a heat gun on those bumpers? It just ever so slightly melts the plastic and you get the original darker color back. It’s quite fun to do as well. It will go bad on you again in about 6 months or a year, but then you can just do it again. I’ve had personal experience doing this on the cladding of a Chevy Avalanche, so I know it works.
So when i was there i suggested he go subaru with it and paint the bottom 1/4 of the tracker in gold metallic flake spray paint. I honestly think it would look pretty damn good. I am glad he took some of the other advice i gave him about the fixes.
Go to Wall Mart and look for “Elastomeric Bumper Paint”(Black Semi-Gloss), in the Isle labeled “Major Hooties”. It will do wonders.
wow, great job on finding the problem. BTW: you don’t need a winch for pulling dents out… all you need is a tree a tow rope with a hook and drive forward a little 🙂
@HeyCharger, can you describe the flapper edge? Sounds like a technique I’d like to learn about. When I Google those terms, I get *other things*. 😉
Thanks!0
Basically you fold one-third or so of the tape back over itself. This way there isn’t as hard of an edge when you paint because the folded edge won’t stick and ‘flaps’.
Not sure if Americans use that technique in spraypainting, but making this edge quickly and efficiently is one of the first skills a spraypainter apprentice has to learn here in Australia.
Try some boiled linseed oil on the bumpers. Will make them look brand new.
Emphasis on ‘boiled’ there: do NOT use regular!
Fully in support of David rescuing this Tracker from a much less-desirable fate.
Big fan here.
Man, you do not even want to guess the cost vs purchase on something I’m eyeing very closely right now. Look. When you can’t buy normal cars, you lean hard into the absolute most unicorn of unicorns.
My restorer (who was absolutely gobsmacked when I proved to him it would by far and away be the rarest car he’s ever worked on) figures at least two times purchase price before mechanical. But man, if I land this one? Not only will I have truly outdone myself in rarity – which is no goddamn small feat – I’ll have beaten a friend in our friendly competition. (And I still say buying it new is cheating.)
You want rare? Beverly Hills Customs has a 1 of 2. Needs full restoration the other hasn’t been seen since WWII.
EBay parts…..you must like doing the job twice. I have never had any luck with those cheap knock-offs.
One of many examples: a stick coil failed on my kid’s Volvo. I found a set of 5 on EBay for less than the price of one at the dealer. I ordered them up, replaced the bad OEM coil, smugly put the remaining four in the “spare Volvo parts” bin. 8 weeks later, another coil failed; great! I have spares – except when I dove in to figure out which one was the issue, it was the EBay coil that failed…replaced that one with one of the spares and it lasted about six months before also failing…..I threw the remaining three away and bought an OEM coil. No problem since.
You mean 3+ times, since half the time, the eBay Chineseium junk (also known as ‘Dorman’) comes apart so violently, fails so unacceptably, or is so completely unfit for purpose that it does a shitload of damage on the way out too.
I think my favorite is a ‘Dorman’ brand part which is nothing more than stamped sheet with some holes drilled and a stud welded in. It doesn’t have the extremely required anti-rub strips, it arrived already rusting, and only two of the holes even came close to lining up. (They did not line up.) Despite it being perfectly straight.
not an auto part, but I was tempted by a new battery for the electric lawnmower at $37 ebay instead of $130 from Black and Decker. Well that didn’t work.. luckily it didn’t actually catch on fire and burn my lawnmower to the ground.
Never been tempted by ebay auto parts – most everything in a car is so much labor to install, I only want to do it once.
I’m nominating URO as a close competitor to Dorman. So many posts about them on the old Mercedes Shopforum. One guy installed their motor mounts—and toasted his motor a couple months later when the driver’s side disintegrated which dropped the fan into his oil-cooler lines & bled out his diesel 123
You have me worried about my Dorman windshield wiper assembly for my 2006 CRV. It’s still working as of right now after about a year….
It looks like Paul Niedermayer’s Curbside Classic $2500 Tracker was a better deal since he just did a 7 day off-road trip
did you think of Labor? $/Hr? What would that add? Time you could have been working on something else in the yard?
It’s literally his job to wrench on shitboxes and write about it, so the labor cost on this is negative. Not that he wouldn’t be doing it anyway, I’m sure.
I wish I had your patience and determination. Kudos!
I love a good proper diagnosis! Nice catch. Seriously though, when are you going to get rid of some vehicles!?
I think an Autopian raffle would be a way to go on at least one Jeep.. you’ll get the money for it and a reader will get a prize. A rusty, maybe almost working, inconvenient prize!
Dibs on the Golden Eagle, which I would give the SBC swap that Tracy should have done in the first damn place.
I don’t think that most of the readers here would have spent that much time and money to fix that old tracker. We’d of passed on it or kicked it down the road long before now. The fact that you pushed through and are actually making this thing drivable again is one of the reasons we love you. You’re doing God’s work.
This makes me miss my Tracker so much. I sold it after I got fed up chasing electrical gremlins. I don’t know the process, so it’s hard for me to do what you do and chase it down.
Good luck! They’re fun little cars, especially offroad, and great on gas for what they are.
Same here. It was the most reliable car I ever owned, drove it for 14 years and only gave it up when the KBB was lower than my deductible. So much fun! Bouncing down the highway at 80mph on overinflated tires was exciting!
That’s all pretty normal. I’ve lucked out on most of my cheapo buys. Worst was a $350 XJ that needed a new rear diff (it came with it) but I knew that and swapped it out. Or the $4,000 2010 Ranger I bought knowing it had a bad pinion bearing and still drove it 100 miles home. Yep. Or the WJ Grand Cherokee that I bought with a transfer case leaking through a good-sized crack.
There’s nothing more expensive than a car bought cheap, but the challenge is intoxicating. Each new buy is its own unique Rubik’s Cube.
Your hillbilly dent puller intrigues me.
Are you planning to throw a few dollars at fake carbon fibre trim and maybe a sub-woofer?
That’s a fancy dent puller!
When my brother stacked our Polo into a ditch, we parked it opposite a fence post, and used a chain ratchet (aka comealong/ratchet puller) to pull the front forwards, while I smacked it from inside the engine bay with a sledge hammer.
We got it eyeball-straight, fitted a new radiator, and somehow it still passed it’s MOT for several years afterwards despite looking slightly boss-eyed.
We used to just tie a chain to a tree and drive in the other direction… Jerking the chain a couple times until the damage was pulled back into position.
Stoked to see how this little guy does offroad! These are pretty neat with TDI swaps and solid axles.
I don’t know why it has taken me so long to distill this thought:
You just would not be happy in a nice, new/newer, reliable, sorted car. It has to be a dynamic, shifting pile of fail.
I can understand that.
Yup, David is a car masochist. He can only truly feel alive when he’s feeling some sort of automotive pain.
One Thumbs up, but I wish I had another for the avatar. I would kill for an Old Style. even the dark would be good. Ahhhh, college….. That or a Special Export.
Holy crap, I forgot about Special X – Now I want some! I used to live in Dekalb, IL – one of my bands was even named “Pure Brewed” – when we had to move out of the basement we rehearsed in, it took 3 hours and 2 pickup trucks to cart off all the Old Style and Special X cans & bottles! Them’s some memories!
This is a guy who had the opportunity to keep a Land Cruiser as his winter car and instead chose a car from the 60’s instead
It’s a form of gambling right? XD
Should have used some ramen noodles to fill that gap instead.
Miso paste also sculpts well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob19f_O8my4
For those who don’t get the reference.
Huh. I was keeping track of spending on my “$500” Corolla for the first year – $941 including purchase but not gas or insurance. I stopped tracking it after that. I should add it all up and see where I am. I’m guessing a little over $2,000.
I have a friend who keeps trying to give me his $2500 AMG “I can’t believe scored this deal”. He can’t accept defeat by selling it and he can’t afford to keep it, so he’s looking for someone dumb enough to donate it to. LOL
I love bad ideas, I’m in!
Wait… what could be so wrong with an AMG that it’s free?
I bet it has a holy grail bulletproof 4.0 that’s only been overheated and needed a head gasket 5 or 6 times!
So… many… things…
I am oddly not surprised! I know that 4.0 jeeps have an issue (or at least early ones) with the balancer coming apart. same 2 piece, rubber design.
Many cars are that way. The Jeep XJ was a supplier defect. It happened on my XJ at 160K miles. My Grandfather(who was an Engineer for Chevy/Packard/Chrysler), saw it and said; “Oh my, that’s bad. You should call Chrysler and let them know what happened, they would want to know about that.”. I told him no, I think they don’t really care.
So, basically you’ll have a reliable winter beater after you’re…Oh wait, never mind, as you’re moving to LA and wont need a winter beater
DT is going to go crazy with all the old cars without rust in LA. It will be like that sheltered kid on his first week of being away at college.
I think he’ll be more like the Amish kids who go on Rumspringa and go decide to go back to the community.
Before anyone says it, I know that real Rumspringa is nothing like what they show on TV and movies; but just let it go for the joke.
The cars will be too easy to repair and keep running and he won’t have space to store them. He might just get bored.
Maybe Galpin will loan him a DISTANT corner of their lot or an outbuilding to wrench/store shitboxes. If any customers ask about him, they can claim he is a hobo and pretend to chase him off.
He’ll probably import rusty vehicles from other states.
I’m endlessly amused at the thought of DT moving to Los Angeles and trying to keep enough cars to require a second hand to count.
Unless he was that billion-dollar-jackpot winner
Honestly, under $3k for a 4wd anything these days is still pretty good. Hopefully your shade tree mechanic body work lets you change out the driver side taillight though!
Let’s hope I don’t have to change it anytime soon. [Read: ever]
Mr. Tracy, I admire the doggedness and tenacity with which you tackle these projects. The postal jeep was an awesome and scary read. I can’t help but enjoy when you discover things some of us learned a while back- to be honest I liked to learn the hard way, but hopefully once once per mistake. With all this being said- can’t you please pick a better starting point for goodness sake? Asking for a friend….
[Editor’s Note: Oh boy. – JT]
Reader’s Note: Oh boy!
Having read the article, its not that bad. Once the damper is changed, I’m sure it will be a good little motor vehicle.
One thing I learned a while back with paint, tape off windows trim and other parts, and feather in the paint from the repair. Helps eliminate that harsh line from the tape.
Yep, making a flapper edge with the tape also helps reduce the paint lines.
I agree, this little Suzuki isn’t far off being the offroad beast it was born to be. Bar anything catastrophic happening, you’ve been through all the systems and so there should be a good bit of time to enjoy this thing before you spin it off
So, at least this seems like one of the better shitheaps that David has worked on?
I don’t mean this from a financial perspective, obviously. But I’d certainly place it on lower on the “How likely is it to kill him” spectrum