Final Drive oil change

Well today I got around to changing the engine oil on my SWing and even though the scoot is less than a year old and has 5500 miles; decided to change the final drive oil. I believe Honda recommends this at two years.

Anyway my thoughts on this process:

It is quite easy IF you follow the instructions posted in .pdf format that is posted elsewhere on the forum. If you follow Honda Service manual it will take quite a while as they have you take off much of the plastic (tupperware). This is NOT necessary if you have a 12mm open end wrench!

The oil that came out was GROSS! Very thin and gray and was about like water, definitely not gear oil! I have changed 85w90 gear oil in many vehicles and this was NOT it. So glad I went ahead and drained it.

After draining I squirted about an ounce or so of good clean oil in and rotated the wheel and let that drain out. Kind of cleans out some of that old crud out. Used to do this on my drive gear on my boat.

Some champion the "turkey" baster for refilling the oil; it did NOT work for me. Sloppy and a bad angle kept spilling out oil. So I headed to O'Reillys and picked up a hand pressure oiler much like the one shown in the .pdf instructions. This IS the ticket; it worked GREAT and was not nearly as messy! Would have been cheaper at Harbor Freight but they were 45 minutes away and my oil was drained and ready to be refilled!!!

I did not use gear oil this time around, I did use the good 10W-40 I used in engine. Honda recommends it and it will enable me to use one type oil for everything. If I am not happy next time I will opt for the actual synthetic gear oil.

Anyway I am glad I went ahead and did all this as I have a major trip coming up next weekend so it is ready to ROCK!!!
I hope these comments help others with the process; it is SO easy that probably could be done every oil change or at least every other change...

Cao!!!

I used a 350 mil bottle with a tapering spout and a peace of aquarium air hose .There is no mess.

I know there is some discussion on what type of oil to use in the final drive. Common sence would say gear oil, however Honda says 10w30 engine oil. On my first service on a 2007 Swing with less than 5k miles I also noticed that the final drive oil was dark and appeared very irty. After draining and running a flush oil ( scoot running on the center stand ) I filled the gear reservoir with 85-90 Rotella gear oil. A short ride and a recheck of the final drive oil level revealed that the gear oil had highly foamed. I drained the gear oil flushed the gear box a second time re filled wit 10w30 motor oil. A re check indicated no foam. Foaming in oil indicates air. Is it possible that the differential turns at high enough RPM that the flow properties of gear oil are drastically affected????......Dunno,