My wife's Tracker developed a gearbox leak & ran way low on lube before we caught it(170K miles). It developed a loud wine & apparently got hot enough to destroy a bunch of gears. $2.4K worth of parts & labor later (yeah, I know, not worth it, but she *loves* that car), the tranny shop tells us they installed 10W30 instead of the 75W90 Castrol Syntorq GL-4 or SAE 75W-GL-5 lube the manual calls for.

The trans is leaking worse than it did before the work was done. She's driven about 100 miles on the rebuilt tranny & it's hard to get it into second gear & sometimes it pops out when she thinks it's engaged.

Needless to say, we are not happy. Just wondering if tranny problems are common on these cars & what other's have experienced?

Dave

I've had three Trackers and 2 Samurai's and all had a small leak at the reverse light switch, but nothing major. The O ring on the switch fails and it leaks. Since its a bevel fit, very little torque can be applied or the case will crack. Other than that, I've never had a major leak on any of the vehicles. I replaced the front seal on one with over 160K miles on it, but only because I was in replacing the clutch.
The transmissions are a little clunky, especially when cold. I think my current 2000 Tracker was the worst, but Redline synthetic is a real improvement; I've used it in all my vehicles. For the Trackers, I use a 50% mixture of Redline MTL and MT-90 oils in the transmission and transfer case and it really makes a difference. Its a little pricey, about $8 a quart at Summit Racing, but I feel its worth it. Do not use GL5 in a Tracker transmission, its bad on the syncros. If using conventional oil use GL4 only.
Popping out of gear could indicate a bad syncro or a loose input shaft or bearing or it could just be tight linkage.
For the $2400, the shop should have fully rebuilt the trans and used new seals and installed it correctly and made sure it worked when they were done! If it were me, I'd be stopping payment on a check until they got it right.

Thanks for the info. I find it odd that the owner's manual would call out GL5 if it's bad for thre syncros, though.

Further investigation today revealed that most of the leakage seems to be from the transfer case. It is definitely worse than before the work so I'm guessing the seals on the output shafts may have not liked being disturbed.

I couldn't duplicate her intermitant problems with second gear, I'm thinking it might just have a different "feel" that she isn't used to yet.

I did detect a drop or two of lube at the transmission to rear case interface, but hard to tell the source. It was definitly gear lube & not 10W30.

We have lots of recourse with this shop, since my wife's boss sends business to them (she dispatches for a towing company) so I don't expect a big hassle if something needs to be reworked. After looking at it today though, I don't think the shop screwwed up as bad as it seemed at first.

I was planning on Redline for my Toyta PU, so guess I might as well use it in the Tracker as well....
Thanks again,
Dave

I usually use a Factory Service Manual (FSM) for my info and still have the one for my '94 (rear ended and totalled last year) and it specifies GL-4. When I checked the owners manual (yeah, being a packrat I still have that too) it does say GL-4 or GL-5.
When I had the 94 Tracker, the local trans shop was servicing my Dodge 3500 and while talking to the tech about the rough shifts in the Tracker, he mentioned the differences between the GL4 and GL5 and told me do not use the GL5 in the Tracker cause it doesn't have the pressure rating of the GL4 and causes the rough shifts due to shearing of the oil in the syncros("pressure rating" and "shearing" were new words to me) and to use Redline.
Redline fixed the problem so I assumed he was correct. I guess if the owners manual says its OK, then GL5 must be acceptable and the tech was incorrect.
Sorry for passing out bad info...

[0.quote]Sorry for passing out bad info...[/quote]
Well it certainly seems to have made a difference in your boxes, so the info isn't really bad, it's just disagreeing with the owner's manual.
The 95 FSM lists GL5 as an option, so perhaps they changed something so that GL5 is safe for later models.

Redline sounds like the way to go, in any event, guess I'll order up enough to do both rigs...

Dave