Someone mentioned this earlier and I just want to add to this. If you take your vehicle to a oil change place DO NOT LET THEM USE ANY TYPE OF IMPACT GUN to remove or tightened the front bolts for the skid plates. The front bolts thread into two nuts that are welded inside the front frame and the will break if I torque guns are used. This is a ****ed up poor shit ass design by Toyota. The impact guns will break the weld and is a pain in the ass to fix. I found out the hard way. I ended up having to weld 2 nuts on top of the frame and had to buy 2 very long bolts so I could put the skid plate on.

First of all the skid plate is a crappy design because it has no removable access plate for an oil change. The Tacoma has it,so why didn’t the do this for the 4Runner? Instead of just removing the access plate you have to drop the whole skid plate.

If your going to go this route then the threaded holes need to be robust. The back holes are fine. The holes for the rear bolts are threaded into the frame and very strong. The front bolt holes are 2 nuts welded inside the frame and are not very strong. Plus when it breaks their is no way to get the nut out and no way to re weld them. What Toyota should have don’t was put in 2 thick square plates inside the frame that’s about 1/2 to 3/8 thick the thread holes in those plates and then weld them in. This way is very strong and you don’t have to worry about over torquing.

While I agree it's not the best design, you could have saved a bunch of work by simply installing a rivnut. Food for thought for other people.

And then hope you don’t spin the RivNut.

It's a little 12mm bolt. How tight are you trying to make it? Snug is all you need. That and a little anti seize and you will not a problem for the life of the truck. Some people just think everything needs to be gorilla tight and this is what happens.

I’m with you on this man.

Mine doesn't.

DO NOT add 2 cycle oil.........bye bye Cats........

Two things...

First, I use my Dewalt 20V 3/8" impact wrench for removing and installing the skid plate bolts and have yet to break or cross thread any of them. Impact wrenches aren't a problem if you don't try to apply gorilla strength torque to smaller bolts.

Secondly, there's a much easier fix if any of the welded mounting nuts get damaged. The front skid plate actually bolts onto two frame braces that can be replaced. There's a left side brace and a right side brace (same p/n for either side) and the welded nuts are on those braces. If any of the welded nuts ever get messed up you can simply replace that brace. The braces are just bolted on. No need to weld anything to fix a stripped or broken nut. Each brace can be had for under $80 from a discount OEM parts vendor. Part numbers are 51403-60020 (left & right, non dynamic susp) or 51403-60030 (left & right, w/ dynamic susp). So while Toyota's skid plate mounting design isn't perfect at least the mounting points are on replaceable parts.

Just wanna add my two cent lol I have owned my ORP for a month and got it with 54 miles it currently sits at 2900. After A LOT of looking i decided on amsoil products. I changed the engine at 2500 and put ams sig series and the amsoil filter. Ill be running this 10K miles changing the filter adding a little oil and going another 10K and changing everything. This oil is guaranteed for 25k, with the filter stating 15K. I come from the heavy duty industry where we were running t6 rotella 60k with filter change at 30/60K and the oil check always came back good. I have all the faith in this interval and oil. Also swapped over to amsoil gear oil in the rear diff and Xcase the front diff will come at 10K. I have ran rotella in everything i have owned for the past 10 years, so i am venturing out with this amsoil, and the t6 only came in 5/40.

I think that the deal is still going on but Shell Rotes for Gas Trucks now has a rebate where you can get $10 off per 5qt bottle. Fleet Farm had it on sale with $10 off so I ended up getting Shell Rotella full synthetic for $2 per quart when you do the math. Pretty hard to beat.

I thought of this. My concern was that in the future if the rivet nut lost its grip for any reason and just spun when you try to take the bolt out then you’re really screwed. You would end up having to grind the head of the bolt off then drill it out along with the rivet nut. I thought welding a nut on top was a safer option.

i did the same. picked up 2 big jugs of Rotella Gas Truck at Tractor Supply for $18 after i got my $10 rebate for each. that's crazy cheap by any standard, for a good oil too!

I dumped it early because I was going out west, totaled around 4800 miles round trip. I know the Amsoil can handle it but I wanted fresh oil just for peace of mind; light off road, over landing in the Utah desert, over the San Juan mountain range in a snowstorm, all while maxed out on GVWR. The rig ran great but did struggle in the higher elevations.
Check out the UOA! Not bad considering the oil got worked hard.

Attached Images

     

roger that, fair enough. UOA looks great, thanks for sharing! super low iron, if you're under 1ppm per 1000 miles that's impressive. most 4Runner UOA's show 2-3 ppm per 1000. iron is your valvetrain, timing chain...anything steel. given you probably had to drop an extra gear and climb the RPM's up at altitude that's great wear.

your copper and aluminum will keep dropping and level out at around 30-40k miles. that seems to be where most 4Runner UOA's show those values stabilizing and indicating its actually broken in.

i think you found your blend! i'd go ahead and run that 8-10k with confidence from here on out i might even pick some up for myself sometime...

So you’re getting a UOA for every oil change? I can see maybe getting a baseline for the fun of it. Or monitoring an old engine for wear problems. But you’re adding about $30 to each oil change for a new engine.