2.92 Differential Oil Change

[Greg@PacePerformance]

I'm not sure on that one. I guess if you had too it would be OK.

I think I would do one first. Drain then fill. It might not even take a full 1.25L to fill.

[BLKG8]

Turns out the two bottles i bought last year must of been fresh, cause the expiration date is 3/13. Guess i'll change it soon.:thumbup:

[LDM]

Last week I changed out the differential oil and I figured I'd share a few pics in case someone wanted to do this themselves. It's a relatively simple procedure.

The first thing you'll need is two bottles of lubricant. It takes about 1.3 qts or 1.25 L, so one bottle won't be enough. The GM part number is 92184900. The general consensus seems to be that if you have the stock GT diff, you need to use this factory lubricant due to the special additives, so that's what I used.



To get the oil into the diff, I purchased a pump for filling lower units on outboard motors. It was under $5, screwed right onto the bottle, and worked like a charm. All I did was remove the lower unit adapter from the end of the hose and stuck the hose right in the fill port.



Once I got the car lifted up, I removed the rear section of the right side exhaust to get better access to the drain and fill plugs. My Corsa makes this easy because there is a connection on the midpipe not too far forward of the diff. If you have the stock exhaust, I suppose you could disconnect at the muffler which might allow you to move the section of the midpipe out of the way. On the right side of the differential are the drain and fill plugs.



Crack open the fill plug first with an 8mm hex bit. You don't want to drain the oil and then realize you can't get the fill plug open. The plugs have integral o-rings, and if they need to be replaced, they get replaced as a unit (the part number should be 92184898.) Mine were in good shape and just got wiped off and reused. Remove the drain plug, being sure to have a pan underneath to catch the old fluid.



Once all of the old oil has drained out, you can replace the drain plug and torque it to 26 ft-lbs (35 Nm). Next I stuck the hose from my bottle pump into the fill port and just pumped until fluid started overflowing out of the port. It took all of one bottle and about a quarter of the second. Make sure that the car is level when you do this so that you fill it to the proper level.





At this point you can replace the fill plug and torque to 26 ft-lbs, wipe up any spilled oil, replace the exhaust, and then lower the car. I couldn't find a recommended service interval in the owner's manual, but for what it's worth my car was at a little over 38,000 miles.

[-Ray-]

Good job Len.

[cstmg8]

Thanks Len, I need to do mine soon. How did you keep the car level and have it jacked up for access?

[LDM]

Thanks Len, I need to do mine soon. How did you keep the car level and have it jacked up for access?

I drove the front up on my Race Ramps and then jacked up the rear and lowered it onto Race Ramp Wheel Cribs. Both are 10 inches tall and the vehicle's weight was on it's wheels so I knew it was level as if it were sitting on the ground. You can sort of see the cribs in the last picture I posted. I did the transmission service the same day so I wanted to be certain that the car was level for the fill procedure for that.

[CommodoreG8]

Awesome! Thank you! This is on my to do list for this fall.

[J Wikoff]

I did mine at 50k or so. I didn't remove any exhaust parts. I think I used an extension and a wobble joint so the ratchet was outside the exhaust pipe.

[LDM]

I did mine at 50k or so. I didn't remove any exhaust parts. I think I used an extension and a wobble joint so the ratchet was outside the exhaust pipe.

I'm sure I could've done the job without removing the exhaust. The service manual doesn't tell you to remove it and it normally tells you to remove all kinds of things that you can get away without touching. The Corsa was just so easy to remove that I took the extra minute up front to make things easier later.

[matts88yj]

Good post Len. Quick question on the Wheel Cribs but when raising the rear end do you put the jack under the diff and raise the entire rear up in one shot or are you raising it up in another location? I already have the Race Ramps and love them but have been looking into the Wheel Cribs as well.