Is there a front engine skid plate with a trap door to change the oil filter without having to remove the entire plate? I was planning on getting an RCI as I've had previously on my 4Runner - but their website indicates you still have to remove the entire plate to access the oil filter and the trap door is not useable for the GX models.
Any other brands that offer a useable trap door? Looking for 1/4" aluminum.
@MeefZah - Budbuilt has trap door.. they were designed for a 460 and not simply a 4R retrofit
Yep, that's what I am getting once the ARBs are mangled
Warning: rant follows
Well, disregard my question on the skids with trapdoors. I did my first oil change today with the factory plate, and I was already hating life since I assumed it would be as much of a PITA as the 4Runner. TLDR: it was. It is. I may as well just keep the factory skid since honestly I don't think the trap door will make my life a whole lot easier, and certainly not at the cost of like $500 for a non-RCI skid.
Crawled under, immediately noticed that two of the 4 skid plate bolts were SS replacements with a larger-than-12mm head, so I assumed the holes were stripped and that the stripper of said holes had installed upsized SAE bolts via the ham-fisted method. Also the oil drain door was AWOL, but if I'm being honest I don't really care about that since I planned on leaving it off anyway.
Fortuitously, those replacement SS bolts turned out to be metric and the correct thread, and the nuts were not stripped. I replaced them with 12mm head bolts I had in my parts box just to keep the head size correct and reduce number of tools required.
Dropping the skid actually wasn't as horrible as I remembered it. Once off, I cut off the front hooks because while I understand the purpose behind them, I cannot get those stupid things to release the plate easily and I don't want to hang it from them, if I gotta unbolt it I want the whole thing to be removed since hanging it really doesn't give you good filter access anyway. Plus, why are there 5 10mm bolts on the plastic dam but 1 press clip? Just make it 6 of the same bolts. And why design it so the skid can't come off without removing the plastic dam?
8.2 quarts? JFC. About 7.1 of that blew all over the driveway courtesy of wind that picked up right as I was dropping the drain plug into the scalding hot pan of oil. Scrap t-shirt deployment time.
Usual internal filter mess and s***show requiring more scrap T-shirts to soak up more spilled oil. The filter wrench also wouldn't release without me inventing new curse words. Plus, this filter is sideways from the orientation of the 4R, and gravity is not your friend in getting the wrench off the filter, so it's even more aggravating.
Whole thing took like an hour and every second of it I was thinking how user friendly my wife's Outback is to service and how I can hammer that out in about 10 minutes without spilling a drop, and how Toyota engineers suck ass.
Thank you for your time. I feel better.