Just checked mine to be sure, the drain bolt is 24mm and the fill bolt is 23 mm. That's how I almost stripped the fill bolt head as I thought Honda would have naturally used the same size bolt for the drain and fill bolts, but of course they did not. That would have been too easy.

I'll go back and correct my earlier replies to avoid confusing people.

 

Short of having my own hydraulic lift,I often wish I had accomodations to have my own maintenance pit.The type you can strattle with the car and walk down to service.Then my undercarriage could get more visual inspection and have much more ease of service. We had one at the company I worked for for years.I sure miss it. If someone is fortunate enough to have a narrow valley on or near their property,it could be used for undercar service.Of course you'd still have to lay down but not have to use jacks or stands.

I presently use both.

 

Thanks for all your replies guys. I will try to get under the car from the back lol.

 

you may have trouble getting the leverage to get the fill bolt off with the lack of space.

good luck

 

Not on mine. I promise you a 22mm socket fit my drain plug, and my 22mm wrench would NOT fit the fill plug. Your setup seems different than mine...

I have an 01 AP1, says you have an 02. Did they change anything?

There are a few reasons i remember this. I changed my diff fluid a week ago, and the largest socket in my set for metric is 22mm, and it fit the drain bolt. I had to go buy some wrenches, so i picked up a 22mm wrench (figured the fill bolt was the same) and also picked up a 15/16th in case it was slightly larger (15/16 is slightly larger than 23, but not much)

 

You can change diff fluid without jacking it up, I did it last weekend and I'm a big guy. You do need a drain pan that's slightly lower profile than a "normal" Walmart special to fit under the diff. You also need to accept some drippage when draining if you don't have a real low profile pan, as the drain bolt comes out from below the diff and you need clearance (Clarence) to remove it.

If you jack the car up to do a diff or tranny fluid change, remember to lower to ride height after filling but BEFORE re-installing the fill plug. This way you can let the excess drain out and avoid overfilling.

You can change engine oil and filter without raising the car up, just use a Fumitomo drain valve and low profile pan. Works like a charm by accessing both from the engine compartment.

 

some people have pits and the car stays on the ground... if you could park over the pit it would be really easy to do this without stands or a jack for that matter.

I have always jacked the whole car onto stands and done the brake fluid and tranny fluid at the same time. You might as well while the car is up in the air!

 

i just changed my diff fluid for the first time last weekend using the ramps. They were perfect. I was an idiot though, and instead of loosening the drain bolt i kept turning it tighter thinking i was loosening it. I thought i stripped something but it seemed to tighten up fine when i put it back. Still really nervous about it though. It would be horrible to have to get a whole new diff.

 

I did the same thing with the fill bolt lol. When you're on ur back, the blood flows from your brain haha. Hope I didn't do any damage since I has using a hammer on the wrench.

 

Drive it up on a curb on the right side and you can slide in . Slide in your drain pan and release the drain bolt.
Access the filter from the top.
Bingo.