Rear differential oil change - '04 Prerunner

Decided to document it just in case it could help somebody out. It was a piece of cake. Took me longer to clean up my mess than change the oil.

All I needed was a 24MM socket, 1/2 drive ratchet, I used a 1/2 drive breaker bar but I don't think I really needed it.

I bought this oil and cheapy hand pump at Autozone. The pump worked remarkably well.


Drain plug is on lower right, fill plug of course is on the back. Both are 24MM. Simply remove the drain plug and let all the old nastiness out.



I quickly had unsolicited supervision.



Followed by more supervision.



Also you can tell what the clean oil going in looks like going in. The stuff that came out was pretty nasty. 124,000 miles and to my knowledge it's never been changed. I had a few little tidbits on the magnet.



And this is how the old oil looked:



So basically drain the oil, then replace gasket on drain plug. $2.37 from Toyota - P/N 0

$16 12157-10010 Toyota Oil Drain Plug Crushable Steel Gaskets Set of 10 OEM 12157-10010

12157-10010. Put in new oil through fill hole. I simply filled until it began to dribble. Was pretty close to 3 qts.



Then with new gasket installed on fill plug, re-install fill plug. Easy peasy. Hope this helps someone.

Cheers,

Scott

 

I've never seen a little pump like that. Looks like it worked perfect! I'm going to have to get one of those. Good write up

 

Yeah, it was like 5 or 6 bucks, worked like a champ. Buying the gallon jug was just as much as buying the 3 individual quarts, so the pump worked out well. It was quite a few pumps. Says it delivers one oz. per pump.

 

Wow, 124K. I change synthetic every 30K.

 

It would be a perfect little pump to add fluid to a front diff. I had a freaking pain in the butt once I got mine replaced. Adding new fluid was more than a pain. Might have to try to find me one.

Yeah. 124,xxx is a pretty long time to go without a change. I bet that stuff was smelling RIPE!!

 

Ok, maybe I was a little overdue. I dunno, it just never occurred to me to change it. But I'm slowly catching up on neglected items. Now that I know how easy it is I will be keeping up with it. What synthetic do you use?

 

Cool write up op. tks for your efforts in posting the info and pics. So what IS the recommended mileage for this mx? Im laying in bed and far too lazy to go check the book.