Front Diff and Transfer Case Oil Change Howto

Being from Maine, your bolts are likely as rusted on as mine here in Mass. Spray em with PB blaster everyday for a week before you attempt, I still ended up needing to buy two fill bolts after kind of rounding those bitches off.

 

Sub.

 

That's good advice! I will do that for sure. Thanks!

 

I just did this tonight along with the rear diff. I am the second owner and at 105k miles (bought it at 70k). The previous owner didn't think any of the diffs had been changed. The rear diff and transfer case oils were relatively clean looking and the bolts came off pretty easily. The rear plug magnet did have some gunk on it though. I had to soak the front diff drain plug in penetrating lube for a bit and then go at it HARD with a breaker bar and finally got it to break free. I'm glad I did because it was black as tar and the magnet on the plug was loaded. Which leads me to believe the rear and x-fer case had been changed but the front hadn't.

The hand pump was a real bitch though. I feel like I only got 25ml of oil in with each pump, so basically 40 pumps for a liter which seemed to take forever. But I did just buy a $5 pump.

Also, I bought 6 quarts of mobil 1 75-90 and I felt like I didn't really have enough to allow all of them to overflow (probably because the pump couldn't quite grab all the oil). I'm going to go back and get another quart tomorrow and pump it until all the cases overflow for peace of mind.

All in, I'm glad I did this and it was very easy with this walk-thru and the rear diff linked in the OP. I drove it down the road a bit and 4wd seemed to engage quicker than before. Might just be placebo effect but it feels nice knowing clean oil is in there, esp after seeing that front diff and thinking about how much I used 4wd this winter...

 

I have a 4x2 reg cab with 70K miles. Are the front diff and transfer case only applied to 4x4 and that my car don't have these and I don't have to change out the oil?

TIA

 

Correct. No 4x4 means no front diff and no transfer case.

 

DONE! SO EASY! I can't believe how much people pay to have this done. Thanks for all the help!

 

Is Redline MT-90 the prerfered gear oil for 2nd Gen?

I know it was ideal in my 04 Tacoma.

 

No. The MT is for manual transmission, and it's a GL-4 oil. Keeps the synchronizers happy. I just changed all the gear oil in mine and put amsoil gear oil in my transmission. It shifted like crap. When I changed it to the amsoil MT oil, all was great again. Cost me 30 bucks or so to learn that.

There are better choices for diff gear oil, namely your favorite GL-5 in the weight in the owners manual. A lot of the oils already have a LSD additive, which will not hurt anything if you don't have a limited slip differential.

 

Thanks for the information, made the changing of diff very helpful!

 

Hey gang,

I know from reading this thread that 80w90 is ok, but just thought i'd make mention that one of the Toyota Dealer's here in Austin told me over the phone on 2nd Gen Tacoma's they're using 80w90 in the front diff, transfer case, & rear diff. Also told me getting the 80w90 with the LSD additive is ok to add to the front and rear but is really only required for the rear. Again, just wanted to share info on what the dealer locally told me they're using.

I'm in a 2011 SR5 4x4 with the tow package in case you're wondering.

 

Is it okay to use 80W-90 weight? Every place I go to has only that weight.

 

75w90 and 80w90 are both acceptable.

 

Is it also fine to use synthetic or non-synthetic? It seems like all the

$30 75w-90 Synthetic Gear Lube - 1 Quart (Pack of 2)

75w-90 stuff I am able to find is synthetic

 

I'm new, so i'm sure a more senior member can speak more to this, but its fine to use either one. The argument usually surrounding synthetic vs./or regular "dino" oil is that you don't have to change the synthetic oil as often as your manual requires (30k, 60k, 90k etc).

I'm running synthetic but will still change every 30,000. Synthetic or not for my peace of mind i'll follow Toyota's specs.

 

I changed to synthetic, and it was 75-90. No problems at all by doing that.

 

I just did the front and rear diff, the transfer case and greased the drive shaft U joints and learned a couple of lessons.

1. Do not buy the harbor freight oil pump if you buy the 1 quart oil bottles. No, just don't buy it period. It's too big to fit in the quart bottles and the extension that comes with it won't reach to the bottom of most 1 gallon jugs.
2. Loosen the fill plug but leave it in place when you remove the drain plug. This slows the initial flood of oil which allows you to adjust the drain pan if you don't have it positioned just right.
3. Air tools make short work of removing the fill plug. Don't use them to remove the drain plug. With my air gun even the shortest pull of the trigger unscrews it all the way.
4. You don't need an oil pump for the rear diff if you lower the spare tire.
5. Lower the spare tire and check the air pressure. Mine was 15 pounds low.
6. You don't need an oil pump for the transfer case.
7. You need an oil pump for the front diff.
8. If you made the mistake of buying the Harbor Freight pump cut the top off the oil bottle so it will fit inside.
9. Greasing the rear drive shaft U joints is dead simple because the zerk fittings are on the outside of the joint.
10. Greasing the front U joints is a bit harder because the zerk is in the center off the joint.
11. Saving hundreds of dollars in labor is fun!

 

All good points. I never pay for this - does it really cost "hundreds of dollars in labor" ? That'll buy a whole lot of beer - my usual pay myself for the job

 

I did all three this weekend along with changing the spark plugs, and an oil change. Would have cost about $800 at the local lealership to have all this done. Front diff was a bit of a pain to get at, but no biggie.

 

Thanks for the write up! Just did all 3 along with the tranny. I used a pump for the tranny but the front diff I just used a hose on the end of the angled tip of the mobil one bottles. worked great. I would have used the pump but didnt want to mix tranny and diff fluid or take the time to clean the pump. Advanced auto sells a red/black pump for 14$ that works great. The pump i had for the lower unit on the boat didnt fit the toyota atf WS bottles so I just got a pump with a hose instead of a fitted pump.