Need Transmission Help - Owner's Manual is Worthless in Regard to Maintenance

I was looking into changing my transmission fluid my '02 Auto Prerunner, but aside from capacity the owners manual says NOTHING about transmission fluid or how to change it. That kind of pisses me off. I guess Toyota never assumed owners would change their own tranny fluid.

Are there any How-To's here on the subject? I did a search but didn't find any. I'd like to change the tranny fluid myself but thanks to the manual I don't even know for sure where the drain plug is, or where to start. Thanks.

 

The drain plug is located on the bottom of the auto transmission pan and takes a 14mm socket on my 2002 2.4l Tacoma. The capacity is about 8 quarts but when I drained mine I got 2 and 1/4 quart out. I guess the other 6 quarts is in the torque converter and other areas in the auto trans.
I drained and refilled mine three times ( driving about 60 miles between changes) to get the color of the fluid back to red.
My owners manual specified "DII or DEXRON III (DEXRON II)" fluid.
Also it stated fluid capacity (drain and refill)
two wheel drive except Pre Runner up to 2.5 quarts
four wheel drive and pre runner up to 2.1 quarts
Note the the "up to" and that is why I measured the amount I drained out.

 

Thanks for the info. I just have to find exactly where the transmission pan is and whatnot. I don't have a diagram so I better know for sure where it is before I drain.

Yeah, see that's the thing about doing this myself. A drain only gets part of the fluid. What a pain. I've read conflicting posts around the web about transmission flushes. Some say they can do more harm than good, others say its vital for long-term tranny health. What's the opinion around here?

 

The Dangers Of Flushing...

Flush machines do what they say; they force high pressure cleaning solvents back through the engine and transmission and clean out some of the accumulated junk that has formed. Now engines have small passages and galleries through which oil or automatic transmission fluid flow and there are one-way valves that keep the fluids from backtracking for whatever reason. By using an aggressive cleaning procedure like flushing, large chunks of accumulated sludge are broken off and forced backwards through these galleries and valves and, more often than not, lodge tightly and block them. This cuts off the normal flow of the fluid and causes lack of lubrication in an engine and abnormal or no shifting in a transmission. The results are expensive repairs, or more often, engine or transmission replacement.



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I have to disagree with crazyasu45, if the shop follows the correct procedure when using the flush machine it does not force fluid in the wrong direction. I had mine done for the 5th time (30, 60, 90, 120, and 150) and have never had a problem with the transmission, in fact it shifts like new again. I watched the shop do it last week and the procedure calls for checking the direction of flow before starting the flush to insure you are flushing in the right direction. It took 15 quarts to perform the complete flush, so now I know there is 100% new fluid and like I said it shifts like new again well worth the cost.

 

Maybe it's just in my head, but I feel better doing a few "drain and refills" within a couple hundred miles of each other. Thats what I did with the 04 Prerunner I recently purchased. Now I plan on doing one drain and refill every 10k-15k or so miles. I got out around 4 1/3 quarts when I drained mine so yours should be similar. Just measure what you drain and replace that amount. The type of fluid should be on the dipstick.

 

http://www.4x4wire.com/toyota/maintenance/tacoma_4runner_30k/maintenancep4.htm#tranny