We all have our limits with a given vehicle. For Jeep owner Matt, it was the terrible metal-on-metal noise coming from the guts of his 1992 Cherokee Briarwood. Matt is in college and he’s already poured a lot of love and cash into his beloved first vehicle, but that hasn’t stopped it from sounding like it’s currently gurgling bolts.
He reached out to Jalopnik’s resident Jeep-o-phile to see if he’d like to take it over for short cash. David Tracy already has plenty of Jeeps in various state of repair so he politely declined. The Cherokee was listed for sale… and no takers showed up to kick the tires. So after months of it sitting, Matt decided to offer it to Tracy for free.
David hopped in his own Jeep with a wrenching friend and they set off to see about bringing this Cherokee home. When they got there, the discovered the issue at hand, fixed it and then did something rather wonderful.
Instead of bringing home this 4.0-liter-heater powered Jeep, they took the keys and gave them right back to the college student that handed them over initially. Matt was getting his Jeep back and David was going home with a hell of a lot of good karma on his shoulders.
Head over to Jalopnik to read more about this one. (That’s where we stole the image above too, by the way)
David Tracy, you’re officially a Hooniverse Hero for your efforts in the field. May your roads be empty, your skies blue, and your oil clean.
David Tracy turns a Free Jeep into a Hero's Fix
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6 responses to “David Tracy turns a Free Jeep into a Hero's Fix”
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This is such a great story! Props to David for doing the right thing.
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With the other projects David gets up to he’s gonna need that extra karma pretty soon.
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A wise, wise man. Standing ovation, fellow gearhead!
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Back when I was in college, I fixed lots of cars for free. Most of the guys said “thanks!” and I never heard from them again, unless the car broke down again. From the girls all I got was permenent “friend zone” status. I don’t work on other people’s cars anymore.
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Holy crap! A friend of mine that owns a little contracting business doing masonry work (brick/stone/stucco) for high-end homes owns a couple of Cherokees, and recently bought one for $400, from a guy who thought his engine was shot. He said it had a knock, but when my friend started it up, and then put it in reverse, the knock went away. It was the torque converter-to-flexplate bolts.
Even after telling the guy what the problem was, he wanted to move it. So my friend got a good deal. -
I had the torque converter bolts thing happen (all three were loose) on my Audi Fox, too, soon after a new transaxle, shipped from West Germany, was installed (thanks to a tow truck outfit towing it to the dealer, backwards, with the wheels down, to fix a no-start problem – bad warmup regulator and thermo-time switch). It made a horrible metallic roar on deceleration. The mechanic pulled the bolts and put Loctite 271(!) on them, and tightened and torqued them.
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