How to Check Front Differential Fluid for Auto Repair & Maintenance

Video Transcript

" Hi! I’m William Myers with Subaru for Expert Village. Okay we’re fixing to check the center differential fluid but first we’re going to move the hood to 90 degrees because I’m a big boy and I can’t really squeeze in the tight little area. The first thing you do is push your hood up, pull your pop rod out it’s in a little grommet you’re going to pull out from the little grommet, then you’re going to remove this little plug, you’re going to take your hood pop rod slide it into the same notch it came out of backwards and put it in that little hole, now your hood’s at 90 degrees now I can gain easy access to that center differential tip stick which lives right below the air cleaner box which is straight down there. The first thing you’re going to do is locate the little yellow dip stick which is yellow so its pretty easy you’re going to put your hand down in, pull the yellow little dip stick out and that’s how you get it out and that’s your dip stick but now we got to check it. Remember wipe it all off, stick it back in, pull it out, check and then I’ll show you where the marks are on the dip stick. Okay as you can see I’ve wiped off the dip stick it’s now clean, now we’re going to reinsert it back down to that wiring harness, back down into the little hole that it came out of, put it all the way in to where this here is flush with the top of the hole and then pull it back out and check the fluid level. This is the fun part you’ll be sticking you hands down up under this air box and you’ll be pretty much finding the hole with your hand. That’s the dip stick for checking the front differential it’s under a wiring harness and also under the air cleaner box. Okay now that the dip sticks all the way bottomed out we’re going to pull it back out, do the same path we took to put it back in and once you got it out you can see the fluid level, it’s at the F-mark the bottom line is your low mark, if it’s below that bottom line you need to add fluid 80-90 which is a differential oil and the top line is full, so if your fluids at the top line you’re full, if it’s anywhere in between those two lines it’s good you don’t have to worry about it and if it’s a little over that top line it’s still okay don’t worry about it, if it’s a little over full a little over full is better than a little under full. That’s how you check your front differential fluid now remember don’t forget to reinstall your dip stick."