Thank you for all that! I'm new to 3rd gens so I really appreciate the insights.
When I had the car inspected there was "a little play" in the lower ball joints but they didn't need to be replaced immediately. That was just a few weeks ago in early February. The peace of mind might be nice to have on the trip though. How much does that cost at a shop? I'm not sure that's a job I'll be able to do myself.
Also the oils you mentioned (transmission and transfer case), what does changing those entail? A job I can do myself or should I have a shop do them?
I think I'll just leave the valve cover gasket alone. It's not dripping onto the ground and I can deal with the smell. Don't want to take any risks with tightening the bolts. I'll just do it right when the time comes.
Thank you again!
hi. you can absolutely change the various gear oils yourself. at a bare minimum, change the oil in the rear diff, which is both the easiest to access, and also what gets dirty the fastest. a 24mm 6-point socket does both the filler and drain. make sure when you're taking those bolts off, that you don't strip the heads. they're shorter than some and can become rounded off, and then the (not) fun begins. i had a transfer case drain bolt that someone had grossly overtorqued, and it became rounded to the point that a welded-on nut was necessary to remove it.
doing that one will illustrate whether you want to do the others yourself or not. always remove the fill bolt first, then the drain, so that in case the drain plug comes easily but the filler doesn't, you're not caught without gear oil. after draining, fit a new crush washer to the drain bolt and torque to 36 ft lbf and no more. too tight is asking for trouble. refill until gear oil just barely crests the fill plug hole; mine takes about 2.3 qt of GL-5. to refill you can buy the squirt bottles or get a gallon and a transfer pump of choice. i do this often enough with two very similar toyotas, that i got a transfer pump that screws on to gallon containers. the others are very similar (front diff and transfer case) except the front diff typically has a hex socket bolt that everyone hates. if your vehicle is a manual, the procedure is similar but just harder to get to the fill bolt. that's why i have the hand pump. i have only owned manuals and any comment i'd have on changing ATF would be hogwash; definitely search the forum for that.
about the lower ball joints, the result of failure is catastrope. you can search for and see cringe photos as proof. then again this also illustrates selection bias in looking for rare occurrences and (of course) finding them and thinking it's right around the corner for you. i changed mine a couple months ago; watch timmy's video about it and i think you'll see it isn't ridiculous. hearing that yours have a little play seems normal but still not ideal. the parts cost around $100 each, and a shop will probably charge you book-rate to do them. this is a guess, but it could be a $500 shop job. if you spring for a shop to this, don't let them put in aftermarket LBJs; only go with toyota for LBJs.
i've done the drive you're planning (but in reverse -- boulder to st. george and back) and i commend you for wanting your vehicle safe and capable. that "no services next 106 miles" sign is kinda daunting. if i recall, there's a similar one on i-15 too.
i'm guessing the smell of burning oil is that your valve cover gasket is leaking oil onto the exhaust manifold, where it has no choice but smoke. it's not an ideal situation but it can indeed probably be ignored for quite a while, unless you're losing a lot of oil.
of all of these maintenance tasks, i would complete the rear diff first (assuming clean engine oil). grease the driveshafts (at least the rear) as well. the visor card tells you where these zerks all are. clean them off and give 'em a little grease in each. you may need to do the ones you can get at, then roll the vehicle forward or back a foot or two, to expose the other zerks that are hiding. alternatively, if you chock the front fore and aft, use jackstands to hold the rear safely off the ground, you can disengage the parking brake and spin the driveshaft by hand to find and grease all the zerks at once.
