Northern Virginia Roll Call

Happy New Years.

 

Bastard...

Congrats!!!

Oh, and Happy Freaking New Year NoVA!!

 

Congrats to you two!

 

I hope your putting them in feet first and leaving the doors open.

 

Happy New Year all.

 

Happy New Year!!

 

Happy New Year! In showing solidarity with an empty Times Square last night, we went to bed before midnight lol. Ready to turn the page on 2020....

Changed my rear differential and transfer case fluid so far today. As it was the first time they've been changed (17,000 miles) I was curious how the rear diff fluid would look as a lot of people have commented on how dirty and stinky the rear diff fluid is on the first change, as well as the amount of metal shavings on the drain plug. Mine stank but the fluid was surprisingly clear and there was mostly sludge on the drain plug, not really any shavings to speak of. Front differential is next.

For those of you with manual transmissions, when do you normally change the oil? I don't see anything in the maintenance schedule about when to change it. I've read elsewhere to change it at 30k but thinking about doing it now since it's the same gear oil as the differentials and transfer case and I already have the mid skid off, and also it being the first oil change just to lay eyes on the old fluid and see if there are any metal shavings on the drain plug.

 

I swapped to redline MT90 in my tranny. I know it’s the same weight but I wouldn’t put diff oil in my transmission since there are transmission specific oils out there. To answer your question though, since it’s easy and cheap, I change mine when I change my t case oil, around the 45k mark.

 

Thanks, I'll look into using a transmission specific oil. At this point I'll just wait until the next engine oil change and change the tranny oil then.

Changing gears (sorry, pun intended), I'm having a devil of a time finding the zerk fittings on the driveshaft. After doing a bit more research, apparently Toyota got rid of all the zerk fittings at some point during the 3rd gen cycle and replaced them with sealed fittings. I guess that makes me feel like less of an idiot for not being able to find them but at the same time not sure how I feel about not being able to service them. I guess Toyota knows what they're doing; hopefully it's not the same engineers who routed the exhaust under the transfer case lol.

 

If it makes you feel any better, I replaced my rear u joints with sealed ones. Been going strong for a couple of years now.

 

There's only one that I've been able to find. It's not in the most obvious of places. There's a small shield around that end of the shaft. Look up from there. A little easier to get to it with the shield pulled off.

 

From what I found elsewhere on TW, the 2017 models reduced the zerks to the location you identified, and by 2019 they had gotten rid of them all. Definitely not there on mine.

 

Kinda wish mine was the same.

 

Not to jump in.. but I remember seeing the Maintenance schedule under the Warranties section, in the downloadable Manuals, on Toyota's site. That being said, the first mention of fluid change for the transfer-case or manual transmission is at the 3yr./36k mark. Even then, only if certain conditions have/were met.

This pdf is for my 19 (pretty sure it's the same for all 3rd gens.). and the Maintenance Log starts on page 38. https://www.toyota.com/t3Portal/document/omms-s/T-MMS-19Tacoma/pdf/T-MMS-19Tacoma.pdf

 

This is a great reference too if you haven't already seen it?

 

Right on!

 

Oh yeah...... Happy new year to all.

 

Congratulations!!! Post up that baby registry!!

 

That's the thread I've been referencing as well

 

"For those of you with manual transmissions, when do you normally change the oil?"

It's part of the 60k 4x4 service. I don't know about doing it earlier. Truck is just over two years old, but the fluids looked good despite the quick higher mileage.