Helpful hint 1.0; oil changes

[freedivr2]

One of the things I'd learned from spending many minutes reading posts at that "other" website was about oil capacity of the iforce V-8 engine and the consensus of what filter was the best bang for the buck. Also, some help re: how to change the oil filter without causing a huge mess.

1. The oil capacity (with a filter change) of the 4.7 liter engine is 6.4 U.S. Quarts.
2. One of the best filters on the market is the PureOne (Purolator) filter.
3. One slick way to change the oil filter is to crack the filter loose, then slip a gallon size ziplock bag over it as you turn it to remove it. But be careful, because when the filter does come off, it drops quickly and you can lose your grip on the bag, then all that would be for naught. Hang onto that bag! Another comment was that a guy cut the top off a gallon sized milk jug and put it under the filter. I tried the ziplock bag method and it worked GREAT. OBTW, both of these methods are used to avoid having to take off the front skid plate to access the filter.

All of you Tundra owners out there; if you have learned something about your ride that can be helpful to someone, please create a "handy hint" and post it, OK? Everybody wins if we do that! Later......

[dogzpaws]

Hey, great idea. Thanks for the post. Personally I find it a pain to remove the skidplate. Because of the size (width) of a milk jug, its a little difficult to get into place. I use a smaller diameter plastic juice container with the top cut off. I unscrew the filter and falls right in the jug along with any residual oil. No mess to cleanup. No skidplate to remove and replace. Usually takes about 10 minutes for a complete oil change.

[freedivr2]

Thanks for adding that, Dogzpaws!

One thing I didn't mention is that I also got frustrated trying to screw on the new oil filter, until I noticed that the mouting threads are NOT at all perpendicular to the block, it's slanted forward (and down). Once I saw that it only took one more try.....:flash:

[DragonLady]

Originally posted by dogzpaws
Hey, great idea. Thanks for the post. Personally I find it a pain to remove the skidplate. Because of the size (width) of a milk jug, its a little difficult to get into place. I use a smaller diameter plastic juice container with the top cut off. I unscrew the filter and falls right in the jug along with any residual oil. No mess to cleanup. No skidplate to remove and replace. Usually takes about 10 minutes for a complete oil change.

That is unless you drop the jug and get oil all over yourself, the skidplate, and whatever else is close by. I don't understand why you guys think it is such a big deal to drop the skidplate. It is still about a 10 minute job. It takes longer to put the new oil in than it does to remove and replace the skidplate. Hell, you have to crawl under there anyway to remove the oil filter.

[freedivr2]

Originally posted by DragonLady

...I don't understand why you guys think it is such a big deal to drop the skidplate. It is still about a 10 minute job. It takes longer to put the new oil in than it does to remove and replace the skidplate. Hell, you have to crawl under there anyway to remove the oil filter.

(P.S. Dragonlady; I think you meant that you have to crawl under there anyway to remove the DRAINPLUG (not the filter), right? You can easily remove the filter from the topside as described in my original post.

I'm sure it's not a big deal to remove the skidplate. My consideration (and I'm speaking from a Manufacturing Engineering background) is that although you can remove the bolts easily enough, you "cycle" the threads of both the bolts & the fixed nuts everytime you remove these bolts. You also will lose a small amount of tensile strength (the bolt stretches so slightly) when you apply torque to the bolt and nut to keep them in place. I plan to change my oil and filter every 2500 miles, so by 100,000 miles I'd have put these fasteners under at least 40 cycles (just for oil changes, more if I have to remove the plate for a bottom hose or antifreeze changing, etc.). I'd bet that the fasteners aren't grade 8 hardware, either, so at 50 cycles I would expect them to start exhibiting some level of fatigue. The other concerns are; losing a fastener (meaning a trip to the hardware store for a metric bolt) or worst of all, cross threading one of them (9 fasteners per change x 40 cycles by 100,000 miles means 360 installations and removals of fasteners......might be pretty easy to cross thread with all those ons and offs).

Bottom line is all that can be avoided completely by removing the filter from the top vs. removing the skid plate/mud guard. And the reason I posted this as a helpful hint is because this method (removal from the top) seemed to be the consensus of a lot of Tundra owners when I read through all the oil changing comments on another site. It's why I decided to try it on my first oil change last week. Anyway, I thought I'd save owners visiting this site a lot of time checking that out. To each his (or her) own, of course.

All that said, I'm personally going to avoid both methods by purchasing a new 3/16" thick skid plate in a few months. This aftermarket plate allows you to access the oil filter from the bottom while not having to remove it.

If anyone's interested in what this skidplate looks like, here's the website where you can get all the info on it;
http://www.skidplates.com/skid_plates_tundra.htm

[DragonLady]

Thanks for correcting my mistake. I did mean DRAINPLUG and not oil filter. It was very late (or very early) when I posted and I was for the most part brain dead.

I totally understand your reasoning for not wanting to remove the skidplate. Thanks for the explanation.