On all the Hondas and Yamahas I have owned in the past you fill the front and rear to the bottom of "a" hole. On the front its the bottom of the filler hole. In the rear its to the bottom of a check bolt on Hondas, NOT the filler hole.

 

It says in the owners manual to fill to the bottom of the fill hole on the Honda...

 

Front or rear? In the front this is the case. In the rear there are three holes in the pumpkin. A drain, an inspection hole, and a filler hole. The rear is filled until hypoid gear oil flows out the inspection hole. If it were filled to the filler hole what would the use of the inspection hole be?

 

you're right, there is an inspection hole, my mistake, I looked at the manual better .....but you fill til' you can 'see' it in the inspection hole....

 

ok, now to clear up the Polaris....

I emailed Polaris, they said they don't answer service questions, need to talk to a dealer, so I called them, same thing...a technically brain dead person on the phone....

so anyways, the correct fill is 5 oz. front and rear.....you cannot see the fluid in the rear, so be careful how much you put in....shine a bright light through the plastic on the bottle of fluid, you can see how much is in the bottle, then start filling and checking the lines on the bottle, until you put in 5 oz....

now for the front....fill to the bottom of the hole threads....if you can get the full 5 oz in you would be really lucky...I got almost 5 oz before it started running out of the hole....

one suggestion, check your drain plugs on your unit, mine were only slightly more than finger tight....also, the front fill hole plug probably took over 70 ft/lbs of torque to get the plug loose....jeeesch.....

 

Trust me, riding where we do and changing final drive fluids after EVERY, yes every ride I have seen a few things with the Hondas I have owned. When you can see it in that crappy inspection hole...its coming at you.

 

I'm sure, especially on the one I'm working on, I think it has been washed once in 3 years....can we talk dried mud, its almost like rocks.....

I can really see changing your drive fluid, especially the rear end after every ride....I rode about 45 miles last weekend (on my Polaris), thats when i had the fluid to the fill hole on my polaris before I realized that it really should be 5 oz....so I drained it again tonight to put in 5 oz....man that stuff gets dirty.....I can't believe how dirty.....the front fluid was clean and the tranny fluid was clean....but that rear gets dirty....granted, its thicker fluid also, but dirty....looks somewhat silvery....like there is metal in it....

I still recommend for anyone that reads this, check your drain plugs, the rear drain plug on mine was probably about 5 ft/lbs and should be 14, the front was maybe a couple of ft/lbs and should be 11, the tranny plug was about right at 10-14 ft/lbs.....

 

Not sure if youve seen my pics or not.... The Hondas I have had have had both front and rear diffs swamped with water on every ride. Not sealed too well.

 

do they have breathers on them? possibly coming in through the breather....I was going to look to see where the breather runs to on my polaris, rear fluid sure seems dirty for only running 45 miles and draining again....

 

I checked my manual also for 05 EFI models.

This should be correct:
Front gearcase - 5 oz. of Demand drive fluid Light and light brown in color) (don't use anything heavier)
Transmission - 15 oz. of Polaris AGL fluid (light and reddish in color)
Rear Greacase - 5 oz. of Polaris ATV Angle Drive Fluid (dark, stink, and is similar to 80-90 wt) (used to be gearcase fluid, i think they just changed the name on the bottles recently)

As for the rear gearcase, i did see an addendum in a unit that someone else mentioned, so the 5 oz. is correct. Filling to the bottom of the fill plug hole i don't believe is right. It will not hurt filling it up that far though, the gearcase will spit out extra fluid through the vent line if it doesn't like it. I looked at an 04 Sportsman 700 EFI and an 05 model, they moved the fill plug from the side of the gearcase to the rear, probably for better access. There must have been some mixup in the manual due to this.

that's the best i can figure it out. All of the procedures are correct, except for the rear gearcase fill (it's contradictory), but you won't hurt it if you do overfill.