Good advice! I have a new neighbor up the street who drives a Land Cruiser and has a lifted Jeep in the garage. He's offered all of his specialized tools. I have a ton of stuff but stoked to have access to all of his jack/lift stuff. Will definitely take the safe route.

I wonder how long all the RCI stuff will take to get here. Tried to order as early as possible.

Just did my first change at 50K myself for a couple reasons: 1) tired of telling the dealership that they didn't do it (had proof) and 2) I wanted to make sure the good stuff was used as it has 50K and plan to keep it a while.

I installed a Fumoto valve so dropped the mid skid (budbuilt) to make sure I could get it done correctly. Moving forward to the door/ hatch, there is plenty of room. To get the cartridge filter off, you'll need a 12" extension to make sure you have enough leverage to get it lose and removed. Those things are a mess regardless of the skid you buy. I don't think you are going to find one that is better then the other in that dept.

I chose Buds because he is in NC and so am I.

No doubt. My whole family is from the VA/NC border and I have an affinity for the area around Boone to Asheville. If the RCI group buy hadn't happened at the perfect time I woulda gone BudBuilt.

I really like that area around Boone and Ashville too. We visited a few years ago and stayed in a log cabin in Waynesville. Spent a few days in Smoky Mountain NP.

When I got my RCI skids in I was not in a hurry to install them. I didn't have a trip planned for a few weeks and I was about to install the lift. So I painted my powder coated skids with Rustoleum paint using a brush and can of black paint. It goes pretty quickly. I painted both sides with at least two coats.

Before I installed them I also did a gear oil change on the front and rear differentials and the transfer case. I also changed the engine oil and installed a Baxter Performance remote oil filter. I recommend the spin off filter below the engine if you do this. It's much easier to install and it fits above the RCI skids. No AN-10 hoses either.

Here's a link. Look at the applications page to get the right part number for the T4R.

https://www.bpadapters.com/applications.html

There are choices for a spin on adapter or a remote oil filter. Either one works on the T4R. For the remote oil filter mounted up in the engine bay there are choices for the number of ports and which side of the adapter the ports are on. If you're not sure which side you'll be able to mount remote oil filter hoses to get the multi-port version with two pairs of ports. For the remote filter mount you'll be running AN-10 hoses with matching fittings. With KDSS the best place for the filter is up over the driver's side wheel well. Otherwise you can put it down below the battery. There are original threaded nuts welded all over the inside of the engine bay on the body work where you can mount stuff. The nut size is 8 mm. It's 1.25 pitch I believe.

Everything you need to know about AN-10 hoses and fittings is here:
AN Hose and Fitting Guide - by Speedflow Shop for the AN-10 hoses and fittings on Amazon to see lots of options.
AN Hose and Fitting Guide - by Speedflow

Man, that is insanely awesome. Not cheap but would be amazing for a carport-dweller like myself. I gotta wrap my head around this.

The convenience of a spin off filter that is not inside of a canister is very useful.

In hindsight I would have installed the spin off filter below the engine. The remote filter was so much work to fab the mount and build the hoses. Then one of the hoses leaked. I just bought pre-fab hoses to replace the ones I made to fix it. There's a potential for failure of a hose out on the road or off-roading, where you'd be stuck with no way to fix it. Look at that link on AN-10 hoses to see what it takes to make a hose. You need a vice with the hose clamp grips like the ones they show. Fitting the pieces on the hose is hard. The repair would be the same. And by the time you realized it was leaking you could be low on oil.

I'm definitely going to do the spin-on filter adapter. Thanks for that!

Which filter are you using exactly?

Mobil 1 #209A Extended Life filter. The filter part number was listed in the Baxter Performance instructions that came with it.

The Mobil 1 210 filter also fits. It's shorter and fatter but has the same gasket diameter - to fit the adapter. It will fit higher above the skid plate. When you get the Baxter adapter go to your favorite Auto Parts store and search for a filter that mates up to the gasket seal.

Someone else here was using a Fram filter.

Awesome. Good to know.

And how messy should I expect that to be?

You mean removing the spin-off filter?

Look for a thread on the canister or metal canister option here from a couple of weeks ago. One guy showed us the Baxter spin-off filter in place of the Toyota canister. He swore it was easy to change the filter and the Fram filter fit above his RCI skid plate.

Cool, I'll check it out. If I still had a real garage with a sealed floor and higher ceiling I'd not be too worried about this stuff but it is what it is. This should be a big help.