How to Replace Front Differential Oil 2007-14 Toyota FJ Cruiser

Hey friends, it's Len here or 1A Auto. Today we're working on a 2007 Toyota FJ Cruiser and we're going to be servicing the front differential. It's going to be a very easy job and I want to be the guy that shows you how to do it. So, if you need any parts, you can always check us out at 1AAuto.com. Thanks.

So, I'm going to use my 12-millimeter with an extension and go right up in this hole right here. There's a bolt that goes up into the body of the vehicle. This is what it looks like. We're going to do the same thing to the others. Watch out for dripping fluid. Going to be the last one here. Slide this down, which is hooked onto ... There it is. There we are. We removed our shield. We'll get this out of the way.

So, this drain plug right here is looking like it's been in there for quite awhile. I'm going to do the fill plug as well. First thing we need to do is remove the fill plug. You want to do that first just in case it doesn't want to come out, you don't have your fluid drained ... Nice. Okay. You don't want to have your fluid drained out with no way to fill it. So, we'll pull out that fill plug. That's what it looks like.

I'm going to grab my drain bucket, collection receptacle. I'm going to use my Allen head 10. I should have mentioned that to take out the fill plug. I'm going to use her for the drain plug as well. I'll stick it in there. If it doesn't feel like it's going in very far you can just go ahead and give it a couple of bonks with your hammer. I'm going try to take it out. Came out a little easier than I was expecting, just like the upper there. So. I guess I'm doing all right. Now, we'll just remove the plug completely into our receptacle.

Okay, friends, just something that I wanted to show you real quick on the plugs on this. The drain plug has a magnet in the center. The fill plug does not. The reason why the drain plug has a magnet in the center is so that when your differential's turning and it's doing its job. In case a little flake of metal comes off from the gears and whatnot, it'll get caught on the magnet as the fluid gets circulated. And it won't keep circulating and get caught in between the gears.

This is just going to collect any debris or metal pieces you might get. And it's also a good indicator when the next time you do your change, if you have a lot of metal debris on there, not just the little shavings and whatnot, but large chunks. Then you might know that you have a differential issue. This one was pretty good, so I'm not really worried about it. I just wanted to show you the plugs.

Now, we can move ahead to the next step. We've got this down to a trickle. You can wait longer if you want to. It can take a couple of days if you got all that time. I'm just going to go ahead and put in this drain plug. I'm going to snug it up. There we are. I'm going to torque this in a minute. First, we're going to fill up our fluid. We'll put in that plug and then torque that one at the same time.

All right, so now we're going to go ahead and try to fill it. If you're using the quart bottles, it can be quite the task, but it can be done. Just do whatever you got to do to get it lined up there. Do it of course over your recycling receptacle. Sometimes these bottles make funny noises. Just a heads up when you're squeezing them. See if I can get it to get out as much of this fluid as possible into the differential. There we are.

Okay. We're using 80W-90 fluid in this. I'm going to grab another quart bottle real quick. Try and put in some more here. Front differential should take approximately one and a half quarts of 80W-90 gear oil. They sell things that you can use to fill these much easier. I'm sure you can get one, 1AAuto.com. There we are. We're just going to let that continue til it's trickling. And then we'll insert the fill plug.

All right. We've got our fill plug. It's nice and clean. We're just going to bottom it out. Okay, let's torque these, 27-foot-pounds. Start at the fill. Go to the drain. There we are. You can hit them again. Tight. Tight. Okay. It's time to put up our shield. I just wanted to show you, you got your little hook right here. That hook is going to go inside this hole. So, I have a couple of bolts in my hand. I have my 12-millimeter socket and an extension.

The hooks holding up the rear of the plate and that's nice because it gives me an extra help for holding up the skid plate. There we are. Get those started. We'll get a couple in the back there. Okay, we've got them all started. We can go ahead and tighten them up. Okay, 12-millimeter, I'm going to blast these in.

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