Am I blind or just stupid?????

Changing fluids today. I'm pretty sure I found the drain plug. It's a hex, on the side of the housing towards the bottom straight below the oil filter and about 4 inches back.... But I can't find the fill anywhere???? The pics in the Chilton manual is for somthing different (it shows the drain plug under the housing and horizonal, where mine is side but lower down and vertical.

If it matters, I'm a '99 SR5 3.4, Auto Trans.

I can't change either differentials.. (Front, can't find the plug, Back I can't get the fill plug off (have help on the way with 6 point sockets where I only have 12).

At least I got he ATF and the Transfer Case changed.....

 

Drains are on the bottom. Fills are about halfway up the pumpkin. They can be tight!

 

fills in the front, behind the skid plate. a long flex funnel is your friend when filling it up...

 

Yeah, I've read they're tight. I'll need to pick up a ten or 12 mil allen wrench for them... (I'll buy both to just be sure)

It's getting late and chilly out so tomorrow I'll post pics. I can't see a hex headed bolt anywhere half way up this thing. Only one I see is the one I called the drain before (mounted virtical towards the bottom of the housing (like the drain on the transfer case)). I took the back skid plate off, to I need to take the front one off also to see the fill?

Also, I got the fill plug out of the rear with the help of my brother in law. Got that changed. Only thing left is the front. (Engine Oil is still great so I'll change that next month)

In case you don't know or care, I'm changing everything because I just bought this several months ago so I'm doing this to make sure everything is clean.

OH, BTW MY TIRES AND WHEELS SHOULD BE HERE NEXT WEEK!!!!!

 

yes, you'll need to take off the front skid to get to the fill. make sure you use the proper hex key to turn it..you dont want to be stripping that thing. blast it with some pb liquid wrench tonight to give it a bit of a head start

 

Alright... tomorrow the front skid plate will come off, I'll buy the long "whip" type funnel, wrentches and lube everything with some Kroil. If I have to soak them over night, I will.

BTW, you guys every hear of this stuff???
http://www.kanolabs.com/

All the oil \ gas companies around here uses this. And it works. If you can get your hands on some, do it. I see cans of this laying around all over the refinery when I'm working our there. Tesoro, Conoco Phillips, Marathon, Cheveron... They all use it.

 

make sure you get the fill plug off before you drain it because if you drain all the oil out and then go to try to take the fill plug out and its rusted shut or what ever you will be up the creek with out a pattle

just letting you know and hope this helps

 

Oh yeah. I learned that the hard way long time ago with changing my oil! LOL I always test the fill plug before I attempt the drain on anything. Good advise for those "young wipper snappers" though!

 

kroil is better than pb blaster some will say, but you can't just run down to the gas n sip and get kroil, .....pb blaster is sold everywhere

they both work well but large truck shops have distributors who supply them, much like red bull supplies cycling and ski shops with little fridges and cans

 

https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f2/dip-stick-120514/

sorry... i just had to do it

 

so what happens when my rear diffy dip stick is showing that i am low on atf??

 

Try using a breaker bar to get the rear diff. plugs out.

 

That's what I ended up doing. The thing was, I didn't want to do it by myself. With those heads so shallow one slip and I would have rounded off the head of the fill plug. So I had him keep the socket (6 point, not 12) in place and level while I pushed down on the breaker bar. That did it. I'm still going to head down and buy a new plug for it. The edged on mine were rounded just a little bit. Better swap it out before it rounds any more and then I have to do things the hard way....


Wow... Rear Diff with a dip stick... That's a new one (refering to that other thread you posted) I read part of that before I posted this thread, but never the very first post of it.... All I can say is WOW....

 

good luck with the front drain plug mine was on soo tight it just rounded the the allen bolt now it wont come off

 

i never had an issue with mine in the front nor the back.. i just hope i put them back on tight enough..

 

Got it done today. It was real easy after I dropped the front skid plate. I still had to look hard for the fill plug because of a nice coating of oil\dirt build up (9 years of oil filter changes I'm betting). But I didn't have to soak them at all.

It is a 10mm by the way. At least for the '99 it's a 10mm and not the 12mm.

I had to put a socket on the end of the allen wrentch and a 6inch extension but that was more to not bust my knuckles. All in all, this whole thing was real easy. Everything was very clean to my liking (Front and rear diffs were much darker then I perfer but there were no metal in the magnets on the drain plugs).

Thanks everyone!

Oh, one question though... When I drained my front diff, how come my ATF fluid on my dip stick didn't drop any? Aren't they all connected????

( I couldn't pass up one last jab at that other thread.... Please forgive me... LOL)

 

No they arent connected, the ATF dip stick goes straight to the bottom of the transmission.

 

I was only joking... Read the thread that Gilby posted.

 

psaraff....you did find the fill plug though right??

I got to mine, it's facing the front of the vehicle. It was covered in mucky-muck though, kinda hard to see.

 

Yep, I found it. Mine was the same as yours it sounds like. I had a little tweeker screwdriver scraping the muck off and that was they only way I found mine. Fluids are all done!! Well, oil is next month. Mine is still real clean. I put Royal Purple in everything. I wanted 75\110, but all they had was 75\90. Next one up was 85\140 and I sure wasn't going that high! Maybe it's the plasebo effect, but I think I can tell everything is smoother. I really enjoy driving this thing! LOL... It got up to 35* today and I was out there washing it. Gave it it's first hand washing of the year today. Took a couple of the badging off of the back (small "Toyota" and the dealership logo in the lower right of the rear hatch). I still need to clean up the goo left behind, but it already looks better. I was just looking it over and seeing what's next to do... I have tires and wheels comeing, a guy pricing up T&M to build a rear bumper for me because mine is really rusty. I would love to take the running boards off but I'm a single dad with two girls (ages 8&9). They still use them to get in and out. So that's still up in the air. So next I'll dechrome the grill and the wheel trim. Those are cheap and easy to do.