09 Taco super maintenance 100k job time thread

Alllll righty so. Truck recently hit the big 6 digits, decided it's time to give her some love and get some good maintenance in. Everything done by myself unless otherwise specified.

So far this has included the following:

Oil change, mobil 1 do this around every 5k miles, toyota brand filter. Basic stuff.
All gearbox oils changed. Both diffs and T-case. Valvoline 75/90 in the forbidden caprisun squeezy bags. This was easy.
Transmission fluid and filter changed, new gaskets. Not easy but done!
Air conditioning service is scheduled (dont have the parts to do this, don't care to.) Definitely underperforming and its better to pay for maintaining than new parts when seals go bad.
New battery
Full throttle body cleaning.
Not maintenance but recently swapped the rear leafs for Icon RXTs stage 2, bilstein 5160s, and superbumps with a U bolt flip kit from trail gear on the rear suspension. And a new Kenwood HU that was very important. Don't even try to convince me otherwise.

Thinking I might need:

Front brakes, nice bosch pads but they have a good 45k miles on them. Time to check them at least, no squeaking but a hard stop this morning from 65-0 took... a surprising amount of distance. Maybe they do need a bleed. Checking rotors while in there too.
Embarrassingly, a mouse chewed a wire right on top of the engine under the airbox! Turns out it's the wire to the oil high pressure sensor, which only lights up when it's angry. So no dash light on that one! Torn between repairing the wire (solder and heat shrink) vs replacing the whole part.

90k miles on my bilstein 5100s, pretty sure they need to be replaced.

And lastly I am wondering if I should:
Flush and fill the coolant
Flush/fill the brake fluid
F/F the power steering. (note I replaced the whole rack at 65k miles, new fluid as of then.)
Fuel filter replacement?

I am soon to do the exhaust cam gear swap, that job will include a new PCV valve and all new valve cover gaskets. Probably new sparks then too, I think that's standard.

Asking a bunch of this here in that whats in the book for maintenance isn't always what is truly best for the truck. But sometimes it's also early on things. Y'alls know what I mean.

 

Sounds like you have a solid plan.
I’d stick to it. You pretty much have all the basics +more on that list.

FWIW, I have 140k on my truck.
You have me beat on a few of the things you’ve listed.

 

Mainly I'm not sure if I should do those flush and fills. Coolant/brake/steering. Yeah I went early on the gearboxes, felt guilty for waiting so long on the tranny.

 

I did drain and fills. I did not want to do a flush. Didn’t any to risk having a problem afterwards.

I did both Trans and Coolant as Drain & Fill.

Haven’t done PS or AC.
Don’t think I will anytime soon.
I learned long ago, I’m better off leaving stuff alone. I’ve created my share of problems fixing things that weren’t broke.

 

Oh yeah, I should have phrased it that way. I'm not a huge fan of over pressurizing systems with a "flush" as opposed to drain and fill. I'll look those up.

My sons car, older mercedes, had the AC dry out from lack of usage and a seal went bad, so it's got a decent leak now. It might seal up a little from the recent fill, but now I'm paranoid about letting the AC go too long without a service. Guys at the shop also mentioned the fill valves tend to spring leaks first on the toyotas, so they replace them every time. Gonna get ahead of that stuff.

 

Coolant needs to be changed at 100k.

Brake fluid needs to be flushed every 3 years or so as it collects water. (Probably why your braking took longer distance)

For the power steering, it’s easy to flush and only takes 1-2 bottles of atf….why not just do it?

Fuel filter, I would change it if it was on the outside Of our trucks but as far as I can tell, our fuel filter is inside the fuel tank. Part of the fuel pump assembly. (Someone correct me if I’m wrong)

And since you are doing the cam gear swap and going to take off the intake manifold….I would clean them with carb cleaner and some rags. Mines were pretty oily at 65k miles.

 

Only filter is a sock on the pump so till it fails forget it.
Coolant a must and open the 2 block drain plugs and all comes out then. Hoses I'm at 12 years and 168k and still originals.
My AC compressor died at 140K and did an alternator at 150k never touched before that.
PS flush at 150k when I changed all the idlers and tensioner pulleys.
Brakes are always so so on Tacomas and many posts on preferred ones but I tow and load so used Powerstop slotted/drilled rotors and Z36 pads $150.
Rears don't wear much but replaced when I did fronts but did not need to.
Bilstein 5100s are lifetime warranty if blown or defective (collapse or compress too easily) but only shocks not labor. Check where you bought them and you need a receipt or proof.

 

Don't forget


Driveshafts......U-joints and Carrier Bearing.

 

Perfect this really helps thank you! I forgot about the sealed fuel filter, no worries there. I'm about to dump a bottle of seafoam in the tank anyways so that should be good enough. Brake fluid is definitely overdue.

I bought and installed the 5100s myself. Maybe I will look into replacing but I'm upgrading to 6112s either way, so I'm not worried. For 90k miles they have served me well. A 10 year old receipt, oh boy. Yeah that's not gonna happen!

Last time I did brakes I put in nice bosch pads, I don't think I did the rotors. Wouldn't be a bad idea to just do that when I have the wheel off for the suspension work.

I have synthetic grease in the gun ready to go! Too ready. It likes to leak, annoying as hell. But a good reminder.

Thank you everyone! Jogged my memory on a few things.

 

Since you're doing cam gears, check, clean, replace the OCV and their filters while you're right there.

 

OCV? Do you mean the PCV valve because that is on the list with that job, but what filters are you talking about? This is definitely how I do things, if I'm bothering to jack up and remove a tire I will do everything at once. Hence probably new rotors and pads while I change out the struts!

 

oh.....one more item.

Replace the PCV. Don't bother cleaning it trying to salvage it. The new PCV costs less than a $5er.

 

Doing that when I do the cams and replace the valve cover gaskets in full. Great idea, too cheap not to do for sure.

 

Oil Control Valve. It does the vvti thing on the cam gears.

 

I will definitely look into that. Might be early but hey, if I am in there, why not. Thanks!

 

Alll righty so on Monday I done got me this box, which I wasn't expecting until Friday:



So away we go! Here's a pic of the existing setup, see if you can tell what is wrong here...



Don't see it? Try this out:



Yeah both of my eibach coils have a curve. If I kick them around they wobble. Oof, I don't think that is supposed to be a thing. At all. But they got replaced so no problem anymore.




Now this is pretty.



The goal was to get within 1/2" drop from back to front. I am at EXACTLY that. Oh boy. Taco lean spacer completely deletes the lean, really nice.

Now I have had a concerning click coming from the suspension and I think I found the culprit. One of them, at any rate.





So the sway bar linkage on the passenger side just spun when I went to remove it. Had to grab it with pliers on the other side to remove. Plus, the sealed grease looks like it's all blown out. Asking you guys to verify but I think I need a new anti sway bar. Are there any better options over stock? And if stock, what's a good source for one?

 

And pardon my image attaching skillset, is it better to host elsewhere and link up? Imgur, direct from apple photo - what's the best practice?

 

Upcoming jobs on the truck-

New cam gears installed. This will mean new valve cover gaskets, new spark plugs, new PCV valve... I think that's it.

Front brakes - on the suspension job it looks like the rotors are getting grainy, and the pads are down to about 3mm. Time for new ones. Any particular pad of choice, I have heavy tires so good pads seem important - and should I change the rotors for some slotted ones? If so, brand choice there too. I searched about and didn't see any hard recommendations. Current pads are bosch, I think have have 55k+ miles on them. Good pads, don't see them on Amazon anymore though.

Brake bleed, coolant flush... sorting out my airbag computer issue. That should do it!

 

When I did my cooling system I had a bit of trouble getting all the air out so I picked up a tool that pulls a vacuum on the system after you drain all the fluid from the radiator, block and overflow bottle. Then you just put the hose in the new fluid and the vacuum pulls all the coolant back in so it fills the block heater core everything. Works great but you need a constant 90 psi on your compressor to get the correct vacuum pressure. I would stay away from drilled and slotted rotors. Some people like them but they are designed for track applications and give you 0 benefits in normal driving conditions. But they do look cool.

 

Good tip on the rotors, thanks! I do think I found my bosch pads on Amazon again, probably ordering those. Just not sure what a decent rotor brand is. And trying to find those replacement linkages for my anti sway bar.