rpg51

Or, maybe they drained the diff and then completely spaced filling it with fresh diff oil. I bet that is what happened. The drain plug, and maybe fill plug, are probably still sitting on the work bench.

freq

Chuck, thank you for modifying your post.

nubbel

I don't believe any person could pump in fresh oil and not notice it run out the other side

I do have a different theory, if you look at our drain plug you will notice it is pretty close to the cooling fins.

My guess is they didn't have a proper nut at hand and might have used a wrench to tighten the plug.

However, the two prongs of the wrench take up a lot more space and when tightening the plug the wrench got stuck on the cooling fin - guy probably just thought it's tight allright.

Source: Replaced my diff fluid a few weeks ago and had to use a wrench due to lack of equipment

zeroptzero

I've tightened mine for 9 years straight, once a year dump, and always used a combination wrench on the fill plug, snugging it down properly by feel. I always used a torque wrench on the drain plug as it is easy access, it's not rocket science, I've done the same with the oil pan bolts and tranny bolts on all of my cars for the last 25 years, despite having torque wrenches coming out of my ears I know how to snug down a drain plug or fill plug properly by hand. Never had a loose bolt in maybe 1 million kms of use.

I think this mechanic put the bolt on by hand and forgot to go back to do the final tightening, you typically get it in by hand and do the final snug down by tool, or he got interrupted during his job.

Honda has an 80w90 diff fluid that will work, most dealers can get it, my preference always is an SAE110, if you can't find that (LE1605) then SAE75w-110 works well too (Amsoil).

rpg51

You don't use a torque wrench on the fill plug! Good lord. What kind of s2k owner are you?

I am going to exercise my right to remain silent on the question of torque wrench use and fill/drain plugs.

zeroptzero

Never, just use one 23mm combination wrench, heck I even re-used the washer a few of times to make matters worse, lol. I realize this is pure blasphemy but that's just how I roll lol. Now I would never recommend this to anyone out there as I am confident in my ability to judge torque values by hand (under 40 ft lbs of course).

I have never tightened the oil filter by hand though, so I deserve some brownie points there.

rpg51

Ok, ok, I'll fess up. I used a torque on the drain plug exactly once, the first time I did it. That gave me a good feel for the torque. I'm basically a human torque wrench.

Since then, I have never touched either fill or drain with a torque wrench, except of course my finally tuned "superhuman" brand torque wrench. Same goes for the transmission

Some torque is critical, other torque not so much.

I throw myself at the mercy of the court. I promise I do use a real torque wrench on spark plugs (for this car anyway), head bolts, bearing cap bolts, etc. I even use one on the lug nuts.

What do you think - probation? Or, am I looking at jail time?

Chuck S

1. I'm sure the dealer's mechanic used a new washer and snugged the drain bolt down properly by feel.

2. LE-1605 is no longer rated as a GL-5 hypoid gear oil. Hence no longer meets spec. Looooooog discussion about this a few months ago.

-- Chuck

zeroptzero

I can understand that as it was developed as a commercial manufacturing equipment lubricant more so than an automotive lubricant from what I gather. It is also thick as mud when cold. In 3 season use no other diff fluid came close to the wear numbers of the LE1605 that I tested. Basically running it twice as long as other fluids still resulted in metal wear numbers that were about 50% less, very convincing real world testing for me, despite the rating issue. But I wouldn't push it on anyone as most people would want a properly rated fluid and there are lots of other choices.

rpg51

I just changed my diff oil yesterday using Amsoil 75W 110. The bottle of oil has been out in my unheated garage and it was quite cold. The stuff was so thick I could barely pump it. I stuck the bottle in a pail of hot water to warm it up and tried again. Made a word of difference. But, that stuff is pretty darn viscous when its cold.

Yea, if only the darn Honda mechanic had used a torque wrench it never would have happened.