Transmission drain and fill

I’m getting ready to do my first drain and fill and I’m curious if everyone is just draining the pan or dropping the pan and replacing the gasket and filter?

 

I just drain-n-fill, and maybe will do it every 30-40K instead of 60K? I bought the vehicle just under 60K, so I need to figure out the interval going forward ...

I documented the process here:

https://www.4runners.com/threads/5th-gen-4runner-maintenance-repair-guide.40730/#post-637098

 

Never doing it, unless it does it itself at some point, but not worried.

 

Drain and refill should be fine the first couple times that you do it. Make sure that you pay attention to the fluid temperature when adjusting the level.

 

104-113 target temp

 

Why not measure and just put in exactly what you removed. Or...can you read fluid temperature with an OBD reader?

 

I’m planning to not open it up, maybe way down the road but I don’t think I’ll do more than throw new fluid at it.

 

Best to do the drain and fill when cold, crack open fill plug 24mm, drain plug, and get about 3.5 quarts out ~

Fill back up with what came out + extra half quart or so. Fire it up, let it idle, shift through the gears. It will take awhile for cold idle trans temp to get to checking temp.

once it reaches the temperature range, you have a few mins to go down and remove check plug. Let it drain excess until slow trickle, almost like an oil change. Once it dribbles or slower stream comes out, plug the check back up.

if nothing comes out of check during the temperature process, add more to the fill until it does.

I just did this yesterday and hope I didn’t mess anything up lol. 29k miles

 

Damn 29k. Why so early?

 

trans fluids can expand a different temps. Thats why it a good idea to overfill bu 1/2 quart or so when your doing the level drain port + running temp range. Barely a trickle should come out when its the right level. If your OBD reader has temp 1 and temp 2 trans fluid readings that will work

 

This is good info:

https://youtu.be/OJZLMIl6XPo?si=ppESuOu-gC3RGGTC

 

I actually watched that video as well as a few others today. Only a couple videos actually drop the pan and replace the filter. I think I’ll just go with a drain and fill and let the pan be for now

 

Well basically I’m at 30k, and I was doing an oil change. Honestly, mostly boredom lol. My buddy had a few quarts of WS left over he gave me to so decided to crack them open and just get it done. Will do another spill and fill at 50/60k