For those looking to change their differential and transfer case fluids you can do this yourself in a few hours. I did mine at 35,600 miles and it was almost black. It was my first time doing this on my 4Runner this past weekend and it was easy. If you can change your own engine oil, you can do this! I did have to use a small 1/2 to 3/4 hose that I hooked up to the Mobil 1 75W-90 fluid in order to squeeze it in w/out making a mess. From what I gathered the front took almost 2qts, transfer case 1.5qts (though my transfer case had extremely low amounts of fluid from the factory and much less than the 1.5qts, any ideas???), and rear 3.5qts. There is a small magnet on the bottom where you drain the fluid, make sure you clean that and don't mix up the bolts... The hardest part was lowering the skid plate (4 bolts) that might be rusted a little, but that's it... There should be other info on this out here when I was questioning doing it myself. Thanks to this site I was able to achieve this and saved the shop fee. Mobil 1 75w-90 if $8.88/qt at Advanced Auto.

Thanks again for the help!

Good information!

Some other information that will help people trying to change their own fluids, is what size sockets and allen wrenches needed to remove the drain plugs. I havent worked on that new of a 4Runner, but is the diff and trans/tranny still 24mm? I forget what size allen is in the front diff.


Another bit of advice, remove the FILL plug FIRST. If you drain the fluid first and the fill plug wont come off, you've got problems.

Thanks.

Yes, you will need a 24mm socket for rear diff and transfer case. The bolts are not too tight on the transfer case, but are on the front and rear diff. I started at the top plug just incase I could not break the bottom one free.

The front diff does use a 10mm hex and the the 4 bolts to remove the skid plate are 10 or 11mm.

I decided to use Mobil 1 75w-90 based on what I have read, but I'm sure there are other synthetics just as good. I do not have a LSD(Limited Slip Differential) stamped on my rear end and to make sure I called Toyota and had them check by the VIN#. I did not replace the crush washers since they looked fine, maybe next time. There are no leaks using the existing washers thus far.

Still concerns me on why the transfer case only had 1/2qt at the most in it from Toyota? I've been driving around like that for almost 36,000 miles!

Here is a link to follow your Toyota maint.

http://smg.toyotapartsandservice.co...;amp;v=1&y=2005&int_id=1

More info on it and how I started initially by reading 4x4Wire:

Linky

Have a great night. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" />


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