Got up the courage to change my tranny fluid today. I've only had the fluid and filter sitting in the garage for three months till I ran out of excuses for why I couldn't change it. It ended up not being as bad as I thought. As I expected its hard to not make a mess. I held on to a large piece of cardboard from Christmas to lay under the car and by the time I was done it was soaked through with ATF.
Some things I learned from today,
These directions are spot on - http://www.toyota-4runner.org/maint...on-service-4th-gen-t4rs-prior.html#post393776
When you take the bolts out of the front skid plate expect them to be tight. I acutally broke one in half.
When you take the last screw out of the pan dont worry, it wont fall on you. As a matter of fact you will have a heck of a time getting it off! The advise of using a scraper (putty knife) was a good one. Getting the gasket material off of everything took a lot of time.
Be carefull when you remove the filter, it has what seems to be a quart of fluid sitting on top of it waiting to run down your arm. (Messy Stuff!)
The return hose for flushing the fluid out is the lower one. I didnt have a helper and was fully expecting ATF to fly all over the garage but it didn't. I just pointed the hose down into my oil pan and the truck did the rest. The fluid was noticibly dark but didnt smell burnt.
It took me four hours to complete the whole job. Its not hard, just tedious. I am hoping not to do it again for a LONG time!
Thanks to Mike the Wino, without his write up I woundn't even condsidered douing this myself!
2003 T4R 95,000 miles
Some things I learned from today,
These directions are spot on - http://www.toyota-4runner.org/maint...on-service-4th-gen-t4rs-prior.html#post393776
When you take the bolts out of the front skid plate expect them to be tight. I acutally broke one in half.
When you take the last screw out of the pan dont worry, it wont fall on you. As a matter of fact you will have a heck of a time getting it off! The advise of using a scraper (putty knife) was a good one. Getting the gasket material off of everything took a lot of time.
Be carefull when you remove the filter, it has what seems to be a quart of fluid sitting on top of it waiting to run down your arm. (Messy Stuff!)
The return hose for flushing the fluid out is the lower one. I didnt have a helper and was fully expecting ATF to fly all over the garage but it didn't. I just pointed the hose down into my oil pan and the truck did the rest. The fluid was noticibly dark but didnt smell burnt.
It took me four hours to complete the whole job. Its not hard, just tedious. I am hoping not to do it again for a LONG time!
Thanks to Mike the Wino, without his write up I woundn't even condsidered douing this myself!
2003 T4R 95,000 miles
