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Watch this video! Save yourself a headache and $$$

10K views 26 replies 21 participants last post by  '63Reverb 
#1 · (Edited)
So here is the story, this last weekend while offroading all was going fine and dandy when suddenly my spotter noticed oil leaking quickly out the bottom of my FJ. Got out and checked myself and sure enough it was true. Thought I must have scrapped by oil pan or something since I currently have no skid plates.



Upon further inspection I noticed the regular oil pan was unscathed from the offroading and so was the front differential, but that the oil was coming from a location further up. Climbed further underneath the FJ and looked up while getting splashed with hot oil in the face is it still dripped out. I noticed a small crack in the area off to the side of the oil pan, so basically the bottom of the engine or what diagrams call the "upper oil pan" or "oil sub assembly".







I was confused how this could have happened. The location was up and out of the way from rocks and everything else in the area was fine, but then I noticed 2 missing bolts that are designed to secure the rear end of the front differential. In the following parts diagram it is part number 90105-12272, these are the bolts that were missing. Without them the front differential had quite a bit of play, and as I discovered, enough to the point that when under extreme stress from torque and articulation that it can contact and puncture the upper oil pan.



You can see in the following photo off to the right side the bracket that has bolts in it and this is the bracket you need to look for to ensure you have the bolts. One bolt is bolted from the bottom and the other side it is bolted from the top. Off to the left are the bracket arms that one would unbolt from the front and then add spacers to if they were installing a diff drop.



A similar event unfortunately happened to another forum member during one of the early FJ Summits, his damage was a lot more than mine though!




So watch this video and then go out and check to see if you have these bolts and if you do, make sure they're tight! Not sure why mine were missing, but I know in the past my FJ had different mods like a 6" lift and diff drop that were removed so some idiot probably forgot to put these bolts back in. Don't let this happen to you! Check the bolts! Could save you over $1,400!



Make sure this thing is bolted!!

 
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#2 ·
Thanks for sharing this with us Hayden. I'm sorry that this happened to you, that's quite a bit of dough to spend for having 2 two bolts missing[emoji35]. Are they hard to get at..I'm going to check mine after reading your experience.


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#3 ·
I am sorry to see and hear that.
Also glad to see you got it taking care of, even thought it was expensive.
 
#4 · (Edited)
Man sorry to see that. I`m sure the previous owner took all their mods off to sell and didn`t really care how well they put that FJ back together. I`m still going to go crawl under the FJ and take a look just incase. Thanks for sharing :)
 
#12 ·
No problem, but you can actually remove the front differential from the bottom of the rig and then you have access to the pan for removal. Thank goodness!

If anyone is interested in reading a similar experience that happened at FJ Summit here is the link. http://www.fjcruiserforums.com/forums/2008-fjcruiser-summit/65827-summit-breakdown-story.html

I saw your original thread and was thinking you had damaged the engine block which would be even more expensive. But as you correctly stated, it is your upper oil pan that was damaged. Is this something that can we welded or even JB welded rather than spending $1400 to replace the upper oil pan?

p.s. I have never seen a cast aluminum oil pan and had no idea there were two different ones. I had only seen the small steel sump oil pan. It all makes sense now as to where all the other 5 qts of oil are stored.
I wish I could just get it welded but I took it to Toyota and they didn't want to do that, they wanted to just replace it. Bummer!
 
#7 · (Edited)
I saw your original thread and was thinking you had damaged the engine block which would be even more expensive. But as you correctly stated, it is your upper oil pan that was damaged. Is this something that can we welded or even JB welded rather than spending $1400 to replace the upper oil pan?

p.s. I have never seen a cast aluminum oil pan and had no idea there were two different ones. I had only seen the small steel sump oil pan. It all makes sense now as to where all the other 5 qts of oil are stored.
 
#10 ·
Fantastic video! We'r experiencing a few warm dry days so Iv got the sprinkler under the FJ right now washing out the winter salt so I can do some rush management so this is timely, I can check when I'm under there.
 
#17 ·
Welding it is not a viable option... it's possible, but it's crappy cast aluminum and doesn't work so well.

JB weld doesn't work so well either. I know these things from experience!

The worst part about fixing this is pulling the front end out from under the FJ. Have to remove the diff and everything. But, that upper oil pan isn't all that expensive, and if you take your time and are a decent garage mechanic, it's not that bad of a job.

I used Toyota FIPG, and applied it carefully as per the manual.

Mine wasn't nearly as bad. A literal crack. Super annoying though!

Great post.
 
#21 ·
Hopefully the repair will be done tomorrow, but here is the video of the off-roading trip we went on. If you watch till the end you'll get to see a bit of the oil leak as it happens.

 
#23 · (Edited)
Update:

So I got the oil pan sub assembly replaced at Toyota. Thank goodness I had the employee discount or it could've cost in the $2,500 range. Here are some pictures.

Here is the front differential being lowered.


This shows the old damaged oil pan, you can see the places other than the crack/hole where the diff contacted the oil pan.



This is the rear bracket of the front diff that was missing the 2 bolts. One bolt screws in through the bottom and the other through the top.


Here is the old oil pan removed



And the new oil pan

 
#25 · (Edited)
#26 ·
Thanks for the heads up on this issue. Just checked my MT's and they look to have different Case design. One bolt easily visible at the rear and nice and tight. I struggle to see how it could have been anything but an omission on a reinstall. The bolts drop in from the top and I can't see a mechanism for backing out. Noticed the rear main seal on one starting to weep. Get to watch that now.
 
#27 ·
Thanks for the tip and sorry to hear about your troubles. I just checked mine and they are fine. I've never touched them so it seems like somebody didn't properly torque yours when reinstalling.
 
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