Today I drove my Tracker to work.  No issues going other than a smell of transmission fluild.  No worry it always smells like that.  But it was  little stronger smelling than usual.  Drove home with no issues.  When I got home my wife handed me my son and said to go get dinner.  We drove it 2 miles to an Italian joint.  As i'm pulling in the lot I notice the temp guage is pegged and I see a trail behind the Tracker.  I pull into a spot and shut it down.  Underneath it there was a large puddle of tranny fluid, about 2 feet long by a foot across.  My tranny has been slowly leaking fluid for the whole 3 years I've owned it.  The engine started okay but when I put it in reverse it took about 10 seconds to get moving in reverse.  After a few feet it stopped and wouldn't move in either direction.  Any ideas as to what might have caused it to just completely die today?  It seems like a seal toward the front of the tranny blew.  It is a 3 speed automatic from a 1990.  I assume it's more economical to find a used one than to try to rebuild this one. 

i belive the qutoes i have seen for rebuilt autos is alot more then just say finding a nice parts truck. but you never know what seal is at what point in its life in the used one.

sorry to hear about the tracker diein on ya keith ;( mine let me down once and i didnt trust it for a few months  :'(. i hope you get it running again soon

Check the cooler lines, one of those
could be bleeding you to death.

Keith,

You have been smelling tranny fluid for a while now! Dude that was your warning that not is all well.
Basically it sounds as if you have run your tranny out of fluid and the torque converter can no longer do its thing. You may get away with filling your tranny up again and idling your rig to fill up the converter. Keep checking it until it is full ( fluid will bleed into the converter ).
Not sure if it will come right but good luck - and fix that leak. Zuk trannies are very reliable in general.

ZeusZuki 

I've always kept an eye on the fluid level.  I checked it just yesterday morning.  It was slightly low, but above the cold level mark.

Temp gauge being pegged makes very little sense...    what's up with that??

Trans cooler is in the radiator, it gets
hot when there isn't enough to do
the job right

I see, that makes sense, but I didn't realize it would cause an overheating situation.