nile13

How hard is it and how long does it take to do a fuel filter change in a C2? Where is it located?
TIA!
PS. Sorry, the car doesn;t start, dead battery, it needs to be towd, I need to run and don;t even have time for a decent search.

Flying Finn

Easy, it's inside the engine compartment and you can find the DIY at www.p-car.com

rainmn

I'll give you my thoughts on it later. FedEx just dropped mine off literally 5 minutes ago.
My airbox is already out...took about 5 minutes on a '95, later cars look a little more complicated to do that step. Looks like the worst part, for me at least, is that I'm going to have to open up the garage door to let out the gas fumes. It's 17 degrees right now, so I'm not looking forward to that.

JasonAndreas

Before you swap filters run your car without the fuel pump fuse (not the DME relay) and that will clear out most of the fuel in the lines and filter. You'll still have a little fuel on the backside of the filter but not the cup and a half you'd have if you just pulled the filter.

chris walrod

Thats a good tip! Thanks

Ron

You don't happen to have an Optima do you? I've had trouble keeping my Optima charged lately; it is 2 1/2 years old but that shouldn't be a problem. Probably because I don't drive the car that often, although I do keep a .5 amp trickle charger connected when not driving. Maybe I started using the charger when the battery was not in that good of shape. I know at least two others who have recently changed to an Odyessey for that very reason.

nile13

Thanks, guys. Robin's site mentions 3.5 hours, although the job seems straight forward. I was thinking of letting teh shop do it today, but probably will do myself in the spring.

The battery is not an Optima. It's an interstate MTP-91 that's been dying for teh past two month, and I had no time to replace it. Well, now it's dead as a dorknob and can't even be jumped.
AAA showed up 7 hours later (not a typo, that is seven hours) and towed the car to the shop where I was supposed to be going this morning anyway.

rainmn

Mike, I just finished changing mine. In the garage, but with the doors open and snow falling. It actually wasn't as cold as I thought it would be.
Changing the filter was a piece of cake. Took me about an hour. I did take the airbox out last night, just to give me a head start. Turned out that took about 5 minutes, so I drilled the cover like the motorsound one while I was out there.
Again, my car is a '95, so if yours is a '96 or later, the airobx is supposed to be a little tougher to remove and re-install.
I also didn't run the car without the fuel pump relay. I used a soup can, cut down to the height I needed with a pair of tin snips. Fit in there perfectly, and I didn't spill a drop of gas.

nile13

Ray, I have a '95 with a chopped off airfilter cover, so it should not be hard. It was just a question of letting or not letting the shop do it for $$, as they are giving a free oil change and I wanted to reward them with some paid business on the same visit.

kkim

I'm looking to do a fuel filter change soon and was wondering from those that have done it if it could be changed w/o removing the airbox? Is there enough room by just removing the airbox cover and air filter? Mine is a 96 and have read where it's a bear to put back on correctly.

I've read the DIY on filter change and was wondering if others have done it w/o removing the entire box.

If I do have to remove the airbox, I'll wait till I get the air valve under the airbox for the SAI DIY and do that at the same time.

Opinions?

Dudley

Changed my fuel filter today, seemed easy enough by simply removing the air box cover and air filter.
Longest time was finding the right sized wrenches.

One tip I used: On the rear compression fitting, I fitted both wrenches so that their shafts were nearly alligned. I sllipped a third wrench between the shafts of the first two and pried the shafts apart. This provided enough leverage to break the flare nut loose.

Svaha

I changed out the fuel filter using the diy from p-car.com in under an hour. I used stubby wrenches and ignored the complications about removing the airbox. I just removed the airbox cover and filter, put rags below and around the fuel filter, and had no problems. Without stubby wrenches it may be necessary to remove the airbox assembly. I am not mechanically gifted, but lazy, and found spending a few dollars at Harbor Freight for stubby wrenches worth the savings in labor to myself. Anyway, it's definitely within anyone's ability to change their own fuel filter, don't need to pay a mechanic for this.
Mark

Dudley

I have to remember to get some stubby wrenches. At least the 19mm.

GrantG

Yeah, I just did this job too without removing airbox. I used flare (line) crow's feet to do it. Harbor Freight sells a set with 10 pcs (10-19mm) for $13.95. I couldn't believe how cheap. Snap on is around $250 and Sears charges around $25-30 for one piece...

epj993

It's really not that big of a deal. I removed the cover & filter and just used some open-end wrenches. It's kinda tight - but what isn't on a 993? On the DIY scale, I'd rank it a '2'.