just got my tracker a few weeks ago for 500$ its a bit of a rust bucket but it runs good. the previous owner called it "rust red" so that's what i'm deciding to call it   . the body is rusted and a lot of stuff under it is rusted but the frame rails are pretty much rust free and have no holes in them. it has a new motor the previous owner put in and it runs like a champ. the plan for it is to keep it a mild build and have it street legal but still good on the trails. i don't think i will be lifting it but i do want to have some more clearance so i will be going for a low c.o.g. style rig.
here is what is started out as.



well the madness started when i started smelling gas in the cab. i looked and gas was pouring out of the rear from above the gas tank. i decided to drop the tank to see where it was leaking from. it was spraying out in a steady stream from the fuel line from the pump. once we got the tank out we saw that the rear cross members were completely rusted out. we pulled the plastic part of the bumper off to find that the metal under it was pretty rusty.



we decided to pull out the plasma cutter and cut off the rear bumper completely. the rear cross member was so rusted out that once we cut the bumper mounts off we just pulled the bumper and cross member out as one whole unit.



the next step will be to get some 2"x4" square tubing and make a rear bumper/cross member out of it. since there is so much more clearance in the rear with the bumper and fuel tank gone we were thinking of either putting the fuel tank in the cab where the rear seat is and cover it with a wooden box with carpet attached to it so it looks like its not even there OR just mounting it higher up under the tracker if we can.
 

I just had this fun with my tracker. Luckily for me the only frame rot was in the tube right behind the front bumper. The body was another story. I would definitely strip the interior and check the whole floor and center hump for soft spots. If your rockers and inner fenders are toast there are patch panels available from vendors online. The worst places for body rot were near any of the floor board supports, around the shifters, the rear void space under the taillights and swing-out, under the ebrake handle/seat belt latch support, around the ebrake grommets, in the front wheel wells and of course the rockers. An old gasket scraper and some heat removes the rubberized undercoating well so you can see and remove all rust before bombing the undercarriage with sealant.

thanks for the info! i know the driver side rear wheel well has a good sized hole in it that we we are just going to fiberglass over as a temporary fix. i want to get some use out of it and do some wheeling before i start really tearing it apart. this is mainly my off road/logging road cruiser since my jeep that i had before got taken off the road by the police for no doors and the tires sticking out and such. once i really start tearing into it i will be fixing everything up properly and properly patching things up. i don't want to drop too much money into it since it is a budget build. i just want to make it solid and reliable for when i am out in the bush.

i just got the metal for the rear bumper today and mocked it up. i got a 63" piece of 1/8 2"x4" metal tubing. 63" seems just right to go from the outside edge of one tail light to the other. it looks pretty good for just a chunk of metal tubing. i will be hanging some small mud flaps off it since it is a lot higher than the stock bumper and i want to keep the police off my case.
i will be getting some more metal tubing for the cross member that the gas tank was attached to since the one on it is rusted out. no pics yet since it was dark out when i got home and mocked it up. wont get anything done tomorrow either since i am working a bit later. i should have the new gas tank in and the bumper on and have it up and running on the weekend though.

Putting a high pressure fuel system in the passenger compartment is not only a bad idea, but illegal!!

If you get another leak, where is the gas going to spray now?

If you get in a wreck and the tank ruptures and you have all the electrical in there? STAND BACK 

We were thinking more of cutting out the floor above where it sat before and making some sort if solid water tight box or cover to go over the top of it. It would still be on the exterior but just raised up into the cab area and covered over.

Looks like you have your work cut out for you, good luck.

Maybe see what kind of fuel cell would fit inside a truck bed storage box (diamond plate). Turn it up side down and you are set.

We were thinking more of cutting out the floor above where it sat before and making some sort if solid water tight box or cover to go over the top of it. It would still be on the exterior but just raised up into the cab area and covered over.

This is a good idea. When I was patching mine back up I thought about cutting a hole in the rear "bed" area and making a weather tight cover for easy access to the fuel system. I eventually decided against it since I kept my back seat but in your case it would be fine to just cut out the area between the wheel wells, mount the tank higher or make it larger, and fab up a raised metal cover. The floor support could probably be totally eliminated since there are no longer any seat belts or seats in the back. It's probably half disintegrated anyhow.

Sorry to hear about your Jeep. I can kinda understand them having a problem with wheels sticking out but I've never heard a requirement for doors... Especially on a Jeep. I guess the police state just develops faster in some places than others :/

Keep us updated. I love seeing things pushed back into service beyond their factory engineered expiration date.

The door issue probably is more OEM and year related.

I will bet it had doors from the factory, they (or some type of door) have to stay on while on the road.

But yes there are way to many rules!!!!!!!!!

so glad we have minimal rust in socal... I hate rust..growing up in western PA cars were lucky to last 10yrs...

got some work done on the tracker in the past few weeks. got the rear bumper on but it's still not finished. i want to cut the ends down a bit, cap off the ends, and paint it black. we mounted the tank under the tracker again for now. i want to get a proper plan laid out before i raise it up in to the body. it is an inch and a half higher now though lol.
after we got all that on the thing refused to start. it has had a history of not starting or dying out randomly. replaced a few things and fiddled around a bit until i found that the ignitor was shot. ended up getting a brand new distributor with all the electronics in it for 300$. took 5 minutes to put it in and the thing fired right up. figure i got it pretty damn close to how the old one was in there since the timing is still spot on and it idles right where it did before.
took it for a quick drive and one of the rear exhaust mounts broke haha. next thing to fix will be the exhaust i guess lol.

here's a pic of the unfinished bumper. looks a bit ugly but it's not finished. i think i am going to take a strip of plastic from the old rear bumper and river it in to fill in the gap above the bumper. just to keep everything relatively decent looking. we are going to get rid of some of the rust and just fiberglass over the holes in the body for now. this isn't my daily driver so i'm not worried about making it really nice at the moment. i just want to get out and go wheelin lol.

took the tracker out wheelin today. took it on the old trail near my place that i used to take my jeep on. when i got to the trailhead i met up with a couple guys in a lifted yota pickup with 33's heading up the trail for the first time. amazingly the bone stock tracker made it look easy compared to the yota (mind you wheelin experience could have been a factor there to). ended up being a great day of wheelin and the weather turned out really nice even.

here's some pics

That bumper is somewhat like mine started.  Here is how mine finished.


I see you have snow out there.  That kinda surprised me being on the wet side.

That bumper is somewhat like mine started.  Here is how mine finished.


I see you have snow out there.  That kinda surprised me being on the wet side.

i really like how you did that bumper up! looks good and clean. the snow was out in the higher elevations. around the 2000 ft level

got around to capping off the ends of the bumper. will be painting it tomorrow. really should have painted it before but the weather has just not been good enough to paint anything outside.