I had a seeping oil leak that was annoying me and while I was pretty sure the oil pan came out like I thought there was no confirmation, pictures or tips on the subject.

So here ya go 3rz owners. Got a leaky oil pan? This outta help you out. It's probably about the same for the 5vz but I haven't messed with that engine.

Tools needed:
12mm allen key socket
10mm allen key socket
14mm wrench
12mm wrench
14 and 12mm socket
Putty knife
Pry bar
Jack
6 ton jack stands
Universal joint
Torque wrench
Rubber mallet
Chock blocks
2 oil pans
Lug wrench
Blue loctite
Brake cleaner
Pb blaster
Diff fluid pump
19mm socket
19mm wrench
Breaker bar

Ok so jack up the vehicle around the first crossmember and remove the front tires . Place the jack stands as high as you can get them. Set the chocks in the back and get ready to be very dirty. If you have a 2wd you can skim through some of this as it doesn't pertain to you.

Undo the 4 bolts under the lower ball joints and then drain the front diff fluid. Then take the pry bar and pop the cv axles out of the diff. You can now swing the suspension out of the way.

Undo the 12mm allen key nut in the middle of the crossmember. It's copper colored. Reach up and undo the electrical, diff breather, and vacuum line connections on the diff. Also undo the bolts holding the lines to the diff. They are 12mm bolts.

Now you will undo the two arms of the diff. They are 19mm and can be very tough. Spray them with pb if they are being a bear. The diff will be pretty much rotating free after removing the bolts so be careful.

If you have a floor jack it will help but you can muscle the diff out from under the truck. Whole thing weighs about 90 lbs so don't try this one handed. The bolt you removed the copper nut off of is permanently there. You have to lift the diff out of that.

OK the diff is out so next is the oil pan. Drain the oil into another drain pan. Then simply start going around and undoing all of the bolts around the edge of the pan. Be careful to remove all of the bolts. If you bend the pan that sucks. You will have to remove the bellhousing window to get to all of the bolts.

Take the putty knife and slide it in between the pan and the bottom of the engine. Tap with the rubber mallet but be gentle. Slide the knife down the side and around the ends to separate the pan from the engine. After this you will want to wiggle the pan but it will drop. Rotate the pan to the side and remove it.

To reseal the pan scrape both surfaces clean and use brake cleaner when needed. After the metal is dry on the pan spread toyota fipg (fix in place gasket) and reinstall. I pit fipg on the tip of each bolt to ensure that the seal is secure. It took me about 2 hours to get rhe pan out and a little more to put everything back in torqued to spec.

Oil pan bolts are 9lbs. Reinstall all bolts in reverse order ensuring that you use blue loctite on the lbj bolts (40lbs). That's pretty much it.

Here are some pics from my oil pan in no particular order.

curious if there are photos..???

Most of the work is pulling the front diff. Separating the pan from the engine block and resealing it with FIPG is pretty straight forward. A thin flexible putty knife is a great tool to help you separate the pan from the engine. I helped my buddy @JZiggy do this on his 3RZ engine but neither of us were in the mood to film it.

For the front diff removal, I have a couple videos you can watch that will help. Some guys have reported all you need to do is remove the support arms and you can easily lift the diff free of the cross member. Other guys have reported they were able to unbolt the rear mount with the diff still in the rig and removed it that way. Another way I've seen is they will remove the pinion flange and then lift the diff out.

The way I like to tackle this job is disconnecting the driver side motor mount, getting under the oil pan with a hydraulic jack and wood block to evenly disperse the weight across the flat part of the pan and jacking up the engine a couple inches. Once the engine is lifted, I put some type of spacer in between the mount and the frame to maintain the height gained and then remove the jack to get it out of my way. The other trick I do is I release the vacuum/breather hard line assembly on top of the diff so it doesn't hook the power steering hoses on the way out. If you do those two things, the diff falls right out without a fight.

Here's the two videos. I suggest watching both. You can disregard the differential work we do if you're not swapping in another diff that's been regeared or a locker has been installed for you from a place like East Coast Gear Supply.