New England B.S. Thread

I love my heated mirrors. Driver side stopped working recently though so I need to hunt that issue down

 

The current state of the bumper. Until spring. Simply won't have time this fall to finish

 

Well, my airbag and seatbelt lights are off for the season

I can also say after having taken the RTT down a couple weeks ago solo, and now just taking my platform out and seat back in.....the seat comes out and in 50x easier than the rooftop tent.

I'm really doing everything i can to dissuade myself from that thing I'm going to give it an honest shot next year though.

 

Today was a collection of epic fail after epic fail after epic fail. I reminded myself why I hate fluids so much. The goal was to change the diffs, transfer case and transmission fluid. Let’s begin.

The Rear Diff
I had the correct Toyota fluid ready to go. Of course it’s cans because this is 1965. No biggie, I have a hand operated transfer pump ready to go. I go to loosen the fill plug and it’s not budging. Not an issue, I fire up my compressor and hit it with the ugga dugga and it pops loose. The drain plug, same deal. Of course I don’t get my finger off the trigger fast enough and it sprays fluid everywhere because of course it does. I whip the drain pan under the diff and let it drain. I’m grumpy because I hate getting fluids everywhere, but here we are.

So I start pumping can one into the diff. I didn’t realize the pump was directional (because why wouldn’t it be, pumps only work one way, it’s not like you don’t have a chemical engineering degree, Mike). So I aerated the can and it overflowed. This is spill #2. Whatever, I re-orient the hoses and cans 1-3 go in. Toyota says that its 3.8 liters or 0-5 mm below the fill. I’ve read some people take more, some people take less. I only have two cans for the front diff which is 1.6L. There’s some heels in the cans, so I’m trying to consolidate to use up as much of the fluid as I can.

It was at this point I noticed that the drain pan isn’t draining. Think I pulled the plug out? Of course I didn’t! So I reach in and spin it open, only to overflow the pan onto the garage floor…again. My truck is covered in Fluid Film, so now I’m covered in Fluid Film from being under there. Life’s just grand.

I decide to dip a bit into the 5th can and pump some more in until I’m fairly satisfied I’m less than 5mm below the fill line. During the 5th can the pump lines disconnect and dump more fluid all over the garage floor, because why wouldn’t it, right? I torque the bolt and decide to move to the transmission next. I’m already grumbling to myself.

The Transmission
This one should be easy, right? 2.6 quarts, I have 3 quarts of Motorcraft Synthetic GL-4 which is the hotness in the Miata world. I bought a bottle pump so this will screw in, I’ll bang the fluid in, zip the bolts back in and I’m golden. Wrong.

I get the fill plug off and promptly punch the underbody. I’m going to have a nifty under nail bruise, because that’s a great look. I get the drain plug off and put my pan under the flow. I aimed right this time and right into the pan it’s going. I’ve got the drain plug open on the basin open, we are truly banging on all cylinders here. Until we’re not. The flow, which was right into the pan decides to shift and dump yet more fluid all over the floor of my garage. This is an omen. It's not until after I pulled the drain plug do I notice the crush washers I purchased using one of the guides on here aren't the right crush washers for my truck. At this point everything's open, so I have no choice but to reuse what I have. Hopefully I'll be good, but I'll keep an eye on things to be safe.

The bottle pump won’t fit the neck of the bottle, it’s too big. Luckily I have a spare hand pump. So I put the fluid under the truck, rig up the hand pump and start to move under the truck. Of course, right into the quart of fluid which promptly falls over and dumps guess what, more fluid on my garage floor. I yell a few choice words, and reorient myself. I finally get the first quart in and when I’m almost out the tension on the hose knocks the bottle over because why wouldn’t it. More profanity.

Bottle two, I won’t make the same mistake, I line everything up and start pumping. Things seem to be going bang up and then the hose disconnects at the pump and I don’t notice immediately. Another puddle? Another puddle! I finally get so fed up I yell into the house to get the wife to help me. We finally get the fluid into the transmission, slightly over full so it’s dripping out. Fine, I throw the pan under and take some time to think about my life choices while it equilibrates. Two down, two to go.

The Front Differential.
I have the TRD skid plate on my truck With the skid it has to come off to access the drain bolt. I despise removing that thing, but off it comes. I get the truck up on jack stands and pop the driver side front wheel. I grab my hex key socket and pop the fill plug. Maybe things are finally changing for me. I then go to open the drain and the bit spins in the plug.

So yeah, no way in the world I'm going to deal with that. I will get it done at 70,000 miles, so that will put me at just about 30,000 on the fluid.

The Transfer Case
Two plugs, this can't be hard, right? Pop the fill plug without drama. I line up my drain pain (now saturated in oil) and pop the plug. I swear this is getting comical at this point. The fluid defies physics and hits the floor again!

So I grab my trusty hand pump since again it's 1950s metal cans and just pump in the liter as it's a 1L capacity. I don't have the correct washers for that either (I haven't a clue how I screwed this up when I was ordering everything) but the existing ones look decent, so I torque them down to factory specs.

I then fight getting the skid plate back on. At this point my wife has to leave and the little one is home sick, so I bang the plate back on, jump in the shower since I'm covered in FF and oil and then put it all back together and clean up after the wife gets back.

Did I mention I hate fluids?

 

Would have made great YouTube content .....

 

As if I’d need another hit to my self esteem these days.

 

Next time shoot me a message. Since your in a garage it's not effected by weather like me spraying. I would have lended a hand this Sunday

 

You are quite the wordsmith, lol :/

 

A guy I went to school with is a sales manager at a Toyota dealership now. I contacted him to see what the timeframe would be to place an order/allocation request for a Tundra if I want it to show up in late spring. I haven't driven one yet, but if I like it I want a Double cab Limited, which is tougher to find. As much as I like my F-150, I am not sure I want to hold onto it out of warranty.

Anyone do a Toyota order or whatever they call it?

 

I had to wait like 3 months to get mine. "$500 deposit" But they never even charged for it, so luckily I didn't have to worry about having to get a refund should something arise.

I told them what I want, that I was not willing to compromise. They got one to me. I've had mine for about 2 years. Only thing I question is if I shouldve gotten LED headlights. But practicality is that I do enjoy driving in snow storms and its kind of nice the heat of halogen melts the ice.

I test drove a few other trucks and the tacoma a few times. I did have to endure about 3 different salesmen so you shouldn't have to deal with this.. There's the old school way of wasting people's time I cannot stand. I tell those guys immediately what I think of that sales tactic and leave.

 

The Maine shooting suspect has been found dead.

 

That's just it, you can't safely put a 3rd human there car seat or not. Even my old Chevy Colorado truck it was possible as it was a column shifter, the middle person would have to put one foot or both on the transmission tunnel. Not ideal but..

This just flies in the face of common sense not to mention both reasons the shop gave me are illegal as I explained to them..but I got the snotty "I'm right so fuck you" attitude basically from the whinebag who did the inspection and the boss he hid behind.

I suppose this would explain the booming invectives I heard across town..

Nah, you need another concert instead.

Totally.

 

I hate to say it but the factory LED lights didn't have a problem with icing either. I had a set on my 2021 Nightshade edition and they took a little longer to warm up but were fine after that

 

Good to know. He has one coming in over the winter as dealer stock that he said he could put my name on so no one else can buy it unless I turn it down, but it's missing a couple things I want, and it's sooner than I want. So, I sent him the config I want - basically a Limited double cab with every box ticked - and said I won't compromise on options but there are a few different colors that would be fine.

 

I put a deposit down on a truck last week. They said ok..now we wait. 1-3 months

 

Damn coward. I know beliefs vary but I really hope there’s a special place in hell for scum like him.

 

Saves the expense of feeding/clothing/housing him at least.

 

Stay away from anti-seize...we know how THAT will end Mike.

 

The first rule of anti-seize is we do not talk about anti-seize.