F430 Complete Fluid Change Tips

I thought I would share my experience with performing a complete fluid change on the F430 Spider with F1 transmission. Thank you to everyone who has posted on the forum this would have been an impossible task not for all of the great advice. If you have access to a lift and the correct tools it takes about 5 hours. I'm certainly not a mechanic but as a kid and teenager I worked on all of my vehicles but admittedly haven't touched one in a few decades. This is a very simple service to do if you have access to an independent with a lift and a few common tools. In addition, it is ALOT of fun so talk your mechanic into letting you "assist".

After reading all of the forums on replacements for the SHELL Oil products that are almost impossible to get I settled on these.

Brake Fluid: ATE Super Blue Racing Brake Fluid Dot 4 (2 liters) from Amazon.com

Engine Oil: Penzoil 550022576 Ultra 5W-40 need 10 Quarts from Amazon.com

Power Steering Fluid: Mobil 1 98HC69 Synthetic Automatic Transmission Fluid (2 Liters) from Amazon.com

Coolant: Honda Coolant Pre-mixed 50/50 Blue 5 Gallons from Honda Dealer

Gearbox & Differential Oil: Valvoline VV975 SynPower Full Synthetic Gear Oil SAE 75W-90 - from NAPA

Tube of Honda Bond from Honda Dealer (double insurance when re-assembling oil drain screen and screws)

Oil Filter, replacement O-Rings complete: F430OCK from www.ricambiamerica.com
Oil Filter Wrench (if needed): OFT-02 $87 from www.ricambiamerica.com (if you don't have it get one makes torque oil filter a simple and correct). If you're in Tampa I will loan you mine.


Replacement Washer for Gearbox plug & Filler: 10263460 Need 2 from www.ricambiamerica.com
Replacement O-Ring for Gearbox oil screen: 182119 from www.ricambiamerica.com
Replacement Washers for Gearbox Hose union: 145192 Need 2 from www.ricambiamerica.com (no one mentioned these in any forums I read, so did not have the spare parts to replace them but I will next time. These are the two washers used with the oil line you disconnect and blow air through. I replaced 100% of every other seal & gasket and for the few dollars it makes sense to replace these critical washers to be 100% sure.

Engine Air Filters: Air Filter Qty: (2) 191206 $57 each from www.ricambiamerica.com
Pollen Filter (if needed): 65384300 $90 from www.ricambiamerica.com
Accessory Belt (if needed): 235315 $62 from www.ricambiamerica.com


Tools Needed: (If your mechanic doesn't already have these I would find a new guy).

High quality torque wrench, preferably digital
For bleeding brakes something like a Magnum XLT Brake Bleeder Kit
UView 550000 Airlift Cooling System Leak Checker - used to vacuum air out of coolant system and refills system in about two minutes.

Getting the car on the lift took about an hour of patience. There are only four spots you can lift the car on. The two rear lift points are large round circles that common lift pads. The front two lift points we had to cut a few blocks of wood to specific sizes to sit on top of the lift pad to fit the correct spot. Take your time it can be done.

Before you lift the car open the engine lid latch (leave it laying down) and the same with the trunk lid just pop it open for future access. Once you raise the car you will immediately see your delima. You can now remove the rear section of the shield bolts but the rear lift points are surrounded by the plastic shield. So after removing the bolts, lower vehicle to the ground, gently get the lift arms out of the shield, slid the rear shield out and re-lift. There are probably more elegant ways of accomplishing this using tripods, etc.

Remove all four wheels. We marked each brake rotor with a small dot that oriented with the valve stem on each wheel just to ensure they all went back on the same way.

There are many links to the F430 Shop Manual and also procedures on each of these points, I'll just add anything that we encountered not covered in the procedure.

Drove the car for about 30 minutes so that everything was up to temperature.

Oil Change:
Removed both drain plug and gearbox housing cap, followed procedure and replaced all o-rings, filter screen and both copper washers from the oil change kit. We let it drain for probably an hour while we were working on other items. Changed filter. Removing the steel ring that holds filter in place required two of us and a flashlight. We did put a very light coating of Honda Bond on the gearbox housing cap and the four screws holding it on. MAKE SURE YOU TORQUE EVERYTHING BACK TO SPEC. All torque specs are listed in workshop manual at the beginning of each procedure. I was fortunate enough to have had access to some high quality, calibrated torque wrenched. It was still scary to torque them to the specification but we did and all was well.

We refilled with 8.5L of the Pennzoil, per the procedure, and after getting the engine up to temperature it barely registered. We ended up adding another 1.5L of oil for a total of 10L and it registered at mid-point between MIN/MAX. You can do great damage by over filling so add cautiously, wait and re-measure. Engine was quite hot when we drained the oil and maybe being hot and draining for so long helped get everything out. It's a mystery.

Gearbox Oil:
You will have to remove the back under shield/spoiler to access this. We had to also remove two of the heat shield bolts in order to get a torque wrench on the Hose Union (the one you disconnect to blow air through). Just remove the two bolts from heat shield to gain access and torque them back to 30Nm. To access the Gear Oil Filler and oil level dip stick we took a 12MM Allen socket and cutoff about 3/4" and then used a 12mm socket to remove and re-torque the cap. We also cut off a 14mm Allen socket and used a 14mm socket to gain access to the gear box drain plug. Stop by Harbor Freight and grab a Allen socket set your mechanic probably won't be excited to cut his snap on sockets. Be sure and replace two copper washers on filler & drain plug. I would also replace the two steel/teflon washers that are on the Hose Union P/N: 145192. Other than that just follow the well documented procedure page 38 in manual or search for A3.02. Refill with 2 liters of gear oil and wait 20 minutes, then slowly add more. Check level, wait a few minutes and add until between MIN/MAX


Brake Fluid:
Using a brake bleeder kit this took all of 15 minutes. Sucked out all of the existing brake fluid from reservoir. Hooked up the brake bleeder to reservoir and starting at passenger rear wheel open the valves on each brake caliper (there are two on each caliper) and wait for the fluid change. This is super easy with brake bleeder kit, no mess, no air at all in the lines and entire car takes minutes.

Power Steering Fluid:
Very simple just follow procedure on page 425 or workshop manual or search for section E 3.02

Coolant Change:
Hopefully everything has cooled down by now so open the coolant cap. Remove front under shield.

Remove the two drain plugs from radiators, you can remove them by hand. See pictures in shop manual on page 183 or search for section B 5.04

The mystery on this is we measured the coolant coming out and we only captured about 3.5 gallons. We tilted the car forward (by lowering rear gently on jack stands) which helped a little and also gently blew air into the expansion tank (helped a lot). The coolant level was perfect before we started and we were expecting to get 4.5 gallons. My suspicion is I should have run the heating system on high for a few minutes before we brought it onto the lift. We evacuated all of the air using the coolant vacuum tool discussed above and refilled with the Honda Coolant.

Replace Wheels:
Put the wheels back on in to correct orientation using the mark you make on the caliper. Initially tighten each lug stud to 35 Nm on all four wheels, then go back around and torque to 100 Nm

After completing we double checked the fluids levels, drove the car around gently for 10 minutes to get up to temp and rechecked all fluids. If you want to double check the Gear Oil level don't re-install the under shields yet or you won't have access. If you plan on driving it around to get everything up to temp like we did I suggest you mark the garage floor with tape where your tires are so you can easily put it back on the lift.

Re-Installing the under shield:
Lower the car to the ground and swing out the lift arms. Slid the rear shield under vehicle and hand tighten several fasteners on both sides to hold in place. Swing lift arms back under car and position the lift pads through the shield onto body. Now when you lift vehicle shield will go back up with it and you can replace all of the bolts etc.

 

Agree analogue works equally well I guess I felt a little more confidence on the small bolts that required 6 Nm to see the exact reading. Good advice on retorque wheels, will do.