I had a look at my air filter (it is quite dirty so I wil change it).

I undid the clips at the LHS wing end of the box, and was able to lift that end of the "lid". At the other end, towards the centre line, are two rectangular protrusions which fit into slots in a fastening on the lower part of the box.

It looks as if the top part should pull away easily. but the air hose on the top part, going towards the supercharger, does not seem to move. Probably if I undid the hose clip and removed the trunking it would come, but is there a way to do it easily?

I had a look in the downloaded manuals but can't find this ("simple") routine maintenance task.

The filter (I wiggled it out) has bits of fluff and leaf on it as well as grey dust, so I want to wipe out the air filter box to get it clean before poking a new filter in.

 

The dealer found that the airbox cover was loose during an oil change and inspection. I found that the top wasn't secured entirely into the rectangular slots on the side of the box. They wanted $150 to tighten the cover!! My car isn't supercharged, but I still had to remove a lot of fasteners and push hard on the cover to secure the airbox cover. This task isn't as simple as it should be. You'll probably need to loosen the hoses and remove more than just the airbox cover to really get at the lower part of the airbox. I removed the engine covers, loosened the hose clamps, and removed the assembly from the intake in order to angle those slots into place.

 

grrrrr!

thanks for your reply

since my post, the new filters arrived, and I managed to get the lid off, clean the box and fit the filter.

The lid feels secure, but the four lugs do not look properly fitted, I can see them by their slots but they are not poking through, it looks like the lugs are slightly lower than the slots as if the top cover is not pushed down enough.

I suppose the cover will have to come off. There look to be rubber bungs as the bottom of the fixing holes, do I prise those out to get at screw heads?

Maybe I will take a fine file to the slots and put a bevel on them if there is no clever trick known only to the initiated. I can't see why it should be so difficult.

 

I have now looked at the correct section (19.10.08) in the workshop manual, it says:


1 . Remove the air cleaner outlet pipe.
2 . Disconnect the mass air flow sensor (MAF) electrical connector
3 . Remove the air cleaner cover
4 . Remove the air cleaner element

1 . To install, reverse the removal procedure.

Some would say that any sensible car maker would design it so you only needed steps 3 and 4

 

A member on the UK site kindly showed me the fix. it is easy when you know how (like everything)

Look at
It is pretty well impossible to relocate the lid, or even to see the "L" retainers without taking the hose off so that you have extra movement.

The same airbox is used on the XJ8 and the XJR up to 2009 (possibly later, I don't know) as well so this is a mod that many owners will want to do. The design of this part would have seemed OK on the designers desk, but is poor when fitted to an assembled car.

I'm going to use a dremel on mine. i will probably leave a short bevelled "L" and see if that helps locate the lid.

 

I was able to use a Dremel bit with a cylinder shape and sandpaper around it to manually take down the tabs without use of a Dremel tool.

This allowed me to avoid taking the lower part of the case out. I was very relieved when the cover caught the two tabs.

 

I left the lower half of the air filter case in place and sanded down the tabs while still installed.

It worked fine and saved the task of removing which I was not sure how to do. (I have an XJR and have never removed the elbow piece that goes to supercharger.