Miles are stacking up on our Tacoma like an over-trained century runner’s workout schedule. As eternal do it yourselfers, we’ve been tackling our 60,000 mile maintenance — heavy service version.
This basically means making a big weekend mess (on several weekends). Change gear oil in both diffs and transfer case, change engine oil, and so much more excellent adventure. Along with the regular stuff we painted our custom front bumper and rocker guards, as well as taking out the oil filter relocation kit I installed when the truck was new.
The oil filter on a V6 Tacoma engine is so difficult to access it should be reported to the United Nations as a human rights violation. Solution is to relocate, but I did so with a funky kit that didn’t hold up to high miles. The gasket on the block adapter wore out and started drooling, and using hose clamps rather than high grade connectors never felt (or looked) right. So I ripped everything out and took it back to stock for now. Plan is to do another filter location using high quality parts so the job is “factory or better.”
As for the lube job, we did everything with synthetic oils again for the ultimate in reliability and a bit of help with fuel economy. We’re planning on driving this truck for at least 300,000 miles, so everything we do has to be top grade — especially lubrication.
Now that we have four trucks in our family fleet (Cherokee,Silverado,Tacoma,Willys) I’m finding our DIY maintenance to be a bit overwhelming. To help organize things we’re playing around with automotive work software. Favorite at the moment is Auto Wolf.
Details about Toyota Tacoma here.
WildSnow.com publisher emeritus and founder Lou (Louis Dawson) has a 50+ years career in climbing, backcountry skiing and ski mountaineering. He was the first person in history to ski down all 54 Colorado 14,000-foot peaks, has authored numerous books about about backcountry skiing, and has skied from the summit of Denali in Alaska, North America’s highest mountain.
