When I first bought my Tracker I heard a rattling noise from the front end of the truck. so I immediatly checked the front end and everything seemed to be okay. then I grabbed the front axle and it moves up and down ALOT inside the rotor area! is this the hubs not holding the axle or is it the front bearings? (it does it on both sides) no noise heard except over bumps rattle rattle.

thanks guyz

The hubs should not cause that, I drove mine with the hubs completely out of it for 6 months. You might want to check and make sure your axle nut is tight and if that is not the case then only thing I could think of would be your bearings are gone.

You may just have a bad CV joint and not realise it.  If it's screwed, then it will have strange motion (up and down, side to side) much further than normal.

Ignore this comment if it's moving in and out from the rotor/hub.  Wheel bearing retainer will most likely be the culprit there.

If it moves in and out of your diff very easily, then you may have snapped a shaft without realizing.

the cv shaft moves inside the bearing/hub area the shaft has no play

Hint you may think the bearings are ok and repack them and torque them in
and still end up with movement of the wheel I have just gone through this. what causes this is the bearing has walked inside the hub and now the bearing is not pressed tight into the hub
the fix is of two ways farmer jon style and proper
farmer jon is to remove hub take out bearing and use a center punch and make in dent inside the hub where the bearing race sits about 1/4'' in from the outter and in edge about 3/8'' of an inch apart after done press bearing race back in repack cones and reassemble
proper way buy new hubs and new bearings
I did it farmer style and got another 8months before having to do it properly
gave me time to save money