how do you do it?

There seems to be some inconsistency in how the air boxes are mounted and some have a bigger gap to the strut brace than others. I managed to just unscrew the lid and manouevre it back until there was a big enough gap to reach into the air box and slide out the panel filter. With others we had to slacken off one side of the strut brace to get enough room to be able to do it.

If I was doing it again, I'd probably just slacken off the strut brace as it is much quicker in the long run (assuming you have the tools on you!)

Chris

If I was doing it again, I'd probably just slacken off the strut brace as it is much quicker in the long run (assuming you have the tools on you!) Chris

A handy tip courtesy of Matt (53FabiaVRS); the first time you take the air-box lid off, you will see a lug on the back L/H corner (the corner nearest where the EMU is mounted to the bulkhead). Hacksaw this lug off and it will make the job a little easier for the future, giving a little more wriggle room.

Do the cutting off the car. Obviously as you will be working to the clean side of the filter, clean up any plastic "saw-dust" afterwards.

Oh and torque up your suspension mounting bolts afterwards (20 nm, I think.)

The job is a PITA and I believe its the main justification for the use of panel filters on Fabias.

Here seems as good a place as any to add my 2p-worth now I've got one (that or start a new thread - lesser of two evils!!!)

I have ZERO clearance between the strut brace and the filter box lid - good for nose abatement, bad for filter change. However, with the bolts removed at the filter end, there is sufficient flex in the brace to wedge it behind the sticky-up bin on the suspension turret (technical term! :P ) That makes changing the filter pretty much as easy as if the brace wasn't there, but of course the problems occur trying to put the bolts back in!

A bit of research has pointed out that strut braces operate under tension, and so unless you have an adjustable one, it will be a fraction shorter than the distance between the bolt-holes at either end. The best way I've found to get round this is to pull on the vertical bit of the brace with one hand, while putting the bolts in hand-tight with the other (don't forget to clean and grease them first if you're not using new ones! ) As far as tightening torque goes, it seems 25Nm is the correct value, which IME is as tight as I can get with my 8" socket wrench just by using my arm rather than having to pull against it from the shoulder or anything - plus one extra yank from the shoulder... (Obviously a torque wrench would be the recommended method! )

Anyway, hope this is of help to someone!