[highway74]

I completed my first oil change at 3k today and was pleasantly surprised that it was far less painful than anticipated. I got a large 5 gallon oil catch tub with high sides and put a large sheetmetal Blitz drip pan under that (didn't need it though.) After doing all of my service work on my 94 4x4 SR5 with the 3.0, the 5.7 was a far cleaner job with the help of this write up (excellent job!) No oil spilling everywhere like my 3.0 when pulling the filter. I simply put a 10" piece of garden hose over the plastic oil filter cap drain tool and it went right into the catch tub with no mess. I used the KD Tools 65mm metal cap socket 3/8 drive. I used to have to take the skid plate off on my 3.0 and even then you had to be a contortionist to get at the filter. I also pull the skid plate on the wife's 4Runner with 4.7 for oil changes, so I guess for me pulling the skid plate is just the norm. I used the OEM filter and Mobil 1 5w-20 full synthetic. The only time consuming thing was waiting for the oil to drain (jacked up driver side front and got quite a bit more oil out.) Torqued everything to factory spec and good to go. Thanks again for the sticky!