I just bought a 2000 recon and am going to change the oil in the rear end and not sure what honda recomends to put back in it. I don't have an owners manual for it, so any help would be greatly apprecated

 

I think honda hypoid gear oil, I don't know what hypoid means but I think thats what my misplaced owners manual said.

 

Welcome to the forum. I believe Honda recommends their 80 weight hypoid gear oil.

Probably any quality 75W90 rated GL-5 (the highest rating for hypoid gear service) would do just fine.

I've been running Redline, just because I have it on hand as my truck specifies full synthetic.

 

Go to any part store (Auto Zone, O'Reillys, Wal-Mart) and ask for hypoid gear oil and it will work fine in yor quad. It will be alot less expensive than Honda. I use 75-90 syn. in mine.

 

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: MEGA XP

I think honda hypoid gear oil, I don't know what hypoid means but I think thats what my misplaced owners manual said.</end quote></div>


I've been told that a hypoid gear is one the the center lines do not match up between the ring and pinion. So if you are looking at a side view of a ring rear the pinion gear makes contact at about the 7:30 position instead of at 12, 3, 6 or 9o'clock.

 

Yeah, a hypoid gear system is a spiral bevel gear system where the axis of the two gears are offset, and the teeth are generally helical.

Hypoid gears generally require very high film strength oil, which also has to resist foaming. Make sure the oil has American Petrolium Instutute rating GL-5 (most any brand name 75w90 will be). GL4 may be specified in some transmissions where the gears don't have the sliding action against each other, as a hypoid system does.

 

Honda's won Shaft Drive Oil, is hypoid 80W85, and GL4 as I can recall. I run Maxima ester synthetic 75W90.