Oil Drain Location on 2006 2.7 Manual

[HuntsvilleRob]

I feel like such a total loser.

I crawled under my truck this morning to do my first oil change on my truck (well, the first one I've done myself), and damned if I couldn't find anything that looked like an oil pan or oil drain. The only accessible bolt I found on the bottom of the truck was sealed with paint, and after reading all the horror stories of people accidentally draining their transmission fluid, I was gonna be damn sure not to touch anything with paint on it.

So where is the drain plug on the 2.7 manual? Every reference I've been able to find on the forums was for the V6 and the pictures look nothing like the underside of my truck. A picture would be very helpful.

[L R H]

Fill point is about 1/3 up from bottom of case on drivers side, drain is at lower part of case on passenger side (side of case, not bottom). Both are in front of the rusted iron section where tailhousing joins maincase. Plugs (bolts) are 22-24mm or larger and are very shalllow, only about 3/16-1/4" tall, so don't round off edges and both plugs have a small raised dimple in center. It MIGHT HAVE a painted inspection mark to designate that it was filled and/or torqued to spec, but is not painted. ALWAYS make sure fill plug can be removed first before removing drain plug. I changed mine last month with Valvoline 75-90 synthetic and it shifts a little smoother, but the syncro's I think would behave better on downshifts with a GL4 (only no dual GL4/GL5 rating) rated synthetic, as in the past Aisin trans in older Toyota's and other vehicles that have used Aisin manuals trans have called for GL4 only. Our trucks state either GL4-5 can be used. Diffs spec GL5 only.