Zip ties just keep the hose in the general area that it should be in. Used spring clamps on the hoses.

Yeah, hard to say on the amount of fluid. Getting ready to check cold first to see if any come out. If not, I’ll do the warm up and see what happens.

Here’s my lovely hard lines






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There should be a plug to check fill level on the transmission pan from the videos I've seen.

gotcha, thought maybe you meant the zipties as clamps.

So I did this today. It took a ridiculously long time to complete. Definitely won't be doing it this way again. It does work but is far too slow, at least for me. I don't have the sealed trans so will be draining the fluid and dropping the pan next time around so I can change the filter/screen, which you can get replacements for, at least in my case with my 2003 A750F.

It took longer than advertised for me too, a decent hand pump woulda made it much faster...or filling it via the fill port like you’re supposed to lol.

Fill port in my case is the dipstick tube. I ended up using both just to finish faster. It was ridiculously slow otherwise, like 4 or 5 hours.

4 or 5 hours? how were you filling the fluid?

Per the first post, from the top port on the radiator. There is apparently a check valve in the system somewhere that makes the gravity feed/IV very slow.

ok just wondering. i dont think theres a check valve, its just all the hose & tubing & bends & gravity that makes its very slow to fill that way as you found. the same funnel & hose set up straight into the fill hole on the side of the trans takes about 2-3 minutes to fill 2 qts. for the non sealed trans the dipstick is the obvious way to fill it.

Yeah, never doing this shit again!

dont blame ya! i never understood why anyone would do it that way, whoever came up with that approach to filling the trans obviously didnt know or understand how to fill the trans the proper way.

no offense to the OP of this thread, its a great write up aside from how he tells you to fill the trans. i was late to the party & didnt change mine until late last year, but knew not to fill the way he explains. if hes still a member here, i suggest editing the post to show the right way to do it & not have anyone else fighting it & spending hours to simply fill the trans.

Sorry for the newb question, but if you do it "properly" and fill from the side of the trans, aren't you going to end up mixing the good and bad fluid? I thought the whole point of filling from the emptying point is that you get all the old stuff out of the system, just leaving the fancy new stuff? I get emptying from one of the radiator pipes, as that flushes the entire system, but I guess my concern is if you fill at the trans, aren't you eventually going to empty the cooler?

You're using the trans pump to pull out all the old fluid a few quarts a at time and refilling. The mixing is gonna happen regardless and the lines should stay filled the entire time.

I used this guide to do the swap today. A couple of notes:

1) Make sure you put the drain hose on the right side. I initially set it up so it was draining into my input funnel. Lost a qt of atf that way. Oops.
2) Gravity feed is extremely slow. That said, if your doing other stuff outside/on the 4runner,its not a bad way to do it. If your 4runner isn't lifted, not getting under it is nice.
3) it takes 12 qts to do a full swap. And yes, you need all 12 qts. I lost 1 qt in my reversing incident, and it was still dark when I finished the 12 qts I bought. It was red instead of black, but still pretty dark.
4) The Valvoline bottles use a weird thread. Walmart had a spout that was supposed to attach, but it didn't fit. It was still useful, as it let me build a gravity feed tank from a 2L soda bottle.

Agree that you want 3/8 ID tubing, and a brass hose barb to connect everything. If you decide to go gravity feed, you need to hang it from above the hood of the 4runner. Just not enough height difference to make it work quickly otherwise.

curious why you used a hose barb? the drain line should be from the bottom trans line port on the radiator, when you pull the bottom rubber trans line there is a 3/8 port/nipple that the drain hose will connect directly to & then run it into a jug with 2 qts marked on it.... no need for a adapter barb.

then the gravity feed fill hose should go directly into the side fill hole on the trans & does not take a long time at all. & when using the funnel it can be hung from the hood like "xtremewlr" shows if youre by yourself but if you have a helper it can just be held above the passenger side fender, doesnt need to be above the hood. & as i explained in my last post, using the fill hole on the trans lets the fluid gravity feed very quick, takes about 2-3 minutes to fill 2 qts.

also curious what you used the valvoline jug threads for? when filling the new fluid you just pour it into the funnel & let it gravity drain into the trans fill hole. not sure what or why you needed to make a gravity feed tank from a 2 litre bottle.

in the future, i hope anyone reading this thread reads the whole thing & sees my posts & realizes that the procedure in the initial post by the OP is NOT the correct way to do this... there is no need to use an adapter & try to splice into the tans lines, just use the bottom trans line port on the radiator, it is the output for the trans fluid. & do not fill via the trans lines, just use the fill hole in the side of the trans as its designed to be used. or the dipstick if you have a non sealed trans. the rest of the write up & comments are fine... but why make this harder than it needs to be?