Hello! I need some help today if possible! I have my recently acquired 2010 LS460 with only 57K miles on it, and doing all of the fluids as preventative. Car is up on 4-jacks and in a great servicing situation for me, with access from underneath. Back Differential is done. Transfer Case is done. The Front Differential is what is left. I have the whole underneath, skid plate, and cross bar removed to access the Front Diff. However, I have tried everything I can think of to get access to get the 10mm hex into the upper fill plug and cannot get anything inside the plug due to the working space being so limited. What am I doing wrong? Is there an obvious way to get to the Fill Plug? Also, there is some wire harness attached to the steering rack that has tiny screws, but that too seems impossible to remove.
What I have even tried is to hack off the end of a 10mm Allen wrench to see if I can get that in, and then use a flat wrench. My problem again is narrow access and I cannot "tap" the 10mm hex into the Fill Plug hole. HELP!!
Here are some pictures of what I have tried with the tight space. There is not enough room to fit a typical socket wrench and 10mm in that space. There is no room to come in from the front bumper as that grey plastic wiring harness is in the way too. So I tapped the plug a lot, tried to clean out the inside, blasted w break away, etc. I did get the small end of the 10mm Allen wrench to FINALLY fit inside somewhat firmly. But after lots of effort including some banging the end of the 10mm wrench I can slip over the 10mm Allen, it still does not budge. And it is such a stupid location and such a stupid design! I am concerned of stripping the darn thing and making a huge project out of what should be a simple task.
Front Diff FILL plug w my 10mm Allen piece inserted
in this picture, you can see there is hardly any room whatsoever. Also above the 10mm Allen you can see that grey harness that is on the steering rack, and I am not sure if removing this "somehow" will give me lots of new found room to work?!??
my 10mm Allen close up. And I am trying to turn the darn thing "lefty loosey", or counter clockwise in this picture.
When I did mine I used this cut off Allen inserted in the fill plug and put a piece of 1" galvanized pipe on the end for a snipe to break it loose, worked for me. If you can't make that work I would get a long punch with a chisel end to break it free and buy a new fill plug.
For an update, I gave up on the Front Diff as I did not want to strip the hole and make anything worse. I agree with and appreciate the pictures and posts above. I tried enough and tossed in the towel. I am paying the Lexus dealership to change the Front diff fluid for $158. I marked the plugs prior to putting the underneath back together and delivering it to the dealership. This weekend I plan on taking a look and seeing what things look like under there, and also to see if I can loosen the Fill plug and then the Drain plug myself. I have plenty of new crush washers and some oil left if I feel I can do the whole job over again. If anything it will be for my own peace of mind on this Front diff work. If I see the old plugs too, I will likely get new ones and replace them at that time. :-) TTT
