Hi all,

The previous owner of my Furby VRS fitted a Pipercross panel filter. I have read that they are washable - can I use any kind of solvent cleaner or does it have to be specific? Can I use generic filter oil?

The big clips on the air intake hoses are a bassad to undo and put back (I hurt my hand twice trying to use mole grips - I ended up using a G-Clamp in the end!) - any tips?

The air filter housing on my car doesn't seem to be a very good fit:

Bearing in mind the upper part is supposed to be clean air, do you think it needs replacing to remove the possibility of dirty air getting into the engine, or am I worrying too much?

Thanks in advance

S

Yep, Pipercross filters are washable. I think it's best to use the cleaner and oil manufactured by Pipercross themselves, rather than any generic oil/cleaner. I'm not sure where you get these as I've got a K&N filter.

I changed my filter without taking any hoses off. Just undo 2 screws and move it out of the way on the flexible pipe.

I tried doing it without undoing hoses, but it was a ball ache trying to get the inboard lugs to locate. Next time if I have a problem I'll just unscrew the air mass meter

Cheers!

If you dont have the proper air filter cleaner you can use petrol

Using a shallow, petrol resistant tray, fill with around 10mm depth of petrol. Dip the filter in the petrol and agitate so that the petrol goes into the filter foam and draws the dirt/dust out into the tray. The petrol will dissolve the oil instantly and will also help draw out the dust. Once you are happy that the entire oil residue and dirt has been removed by the petrol dispose of the petrol in the appropriate manner (at a recycling tip or similar but not down the household drain system). Only repeat this process with clean petrol if necessary. Immediately refill the tray with cold water plus 5ml of washing up detergent and agitate the filter in the solution for a couple of minutes. This process helps remove any remaining oil/dust and also removes cleaning solution residue. Rinse the filter in cold water until none of the soap suds remain and then shake the filter to remove excess water. Leave the filter to air dry in an open environment, but away from any ignition source or naked flame for a minimum of 24 hours, then re oil using the proper Piper X oil. dab up any excess otherwise you might it goes into your MAF and damages it.

then re oil using the proper Piper X oil. dab up any excess otherwise you might it goes into your MAF and damages it.

Dont Re Oil as it is a PD engine, the filters need to go in dry.

Dont Re Oil as it is a PD engine, the filters need to go in dry.

Wash and re-oil mine every 5k, been fine for the last 3 years.

Murky buckets both. I bought some filter cleaner and oil at lunchtime.

Surely the air filter needs oil otherwise it wouldn't do its job of trapping smaller particles - the oil makes the filter a smidge sticky to enable this to happen....... thoughts?

I've always soaked my Piper X in diluted Fairy Liquid to clean and rinsed in cold water. Also never use filter oil, the jury is out on that one.

Use OE filter and replace as necessary. You don't think Skoda designed the original air filter to have restricted air flow and not provide enough air to the engine do you?

A new air filter makes an amazing difference to your MPG too - I changed mine not long after I bought my car and was getting 50 odd more miles to a tank of diesel straight away.

Use OE filter and replace as necessary. You don't think Skoda designed the original air filter to have restricted air flow and not provide enough air to the engine do you?

But with that mentality: you don't think 'performance' filter manufacturers design their filters to do the same (or less) filtering than OE filters, do you?

Plus, I can wash mine every 1k if I wish and have, essentially, a new filter. Whereas replacing an OE filter that often would be cost prohibitive (even as cheap as they are).

The biggest plus of my green filter though is that I can get it in and out of the airbox with the strut brace in place. I wouldn't have a hope in hell of doing that with the original paper filters, they're huge in comparison.

All-in-all my filter is more of a convenience than really there to do fantastic (ie better than OE) filtering of the air to the engine.

I tried doing it without undoing hoses, but it was a ball ache trying to get the inboard lugs to locate. Next time if I have a problem I'll just unscrew the air mass meter

Cheers!

Got a strut brace fitted, by any chance? :p

As for the pic, the filter's not sat right in the housing. I had the same problem on time when I got my car back from the garage...

Got a strut brace fitted, by any chance? :p

As for the pic, the filter's not sat right in the housing. I had the same problem on time when I got my car back from the garage...

I'll have another butchers when I take the filter out to clean it, but I'm fairly certain the housing is slightly warped.

No strut brace - just cackhanded!