Hello Anyone try changing their air filter and have trouble with these air filter box Bolts or screws as they are sometimes called??? This is a 2002 Honda CRV but this air filter housing is very common on different models and model years! This all started when we changed the oil and I asked if the air filter was changed. He thought his mechanic changed it. When I tried to get the rusted housing bolts out it looked like they were not taken out in a very long time! The 2 rusted bolts on the right side were so bad that the slots for the Phillips driver were chewed up and the hex heads were so rounded the socket drive did not work! So in this case we were very fortunate and with very small turns with the vise grips the 2 bolts finally came out of the engine and we got the housing off! Needless to say the air filter was beyond dirty! Anyway, we did not want to rest here so we got 5 new bolts with washers from the Honda Dealer. These bolts looked like they were painted or coated and I sprayed them with Dry Moly so we hope these will work better!! We took the top air filter housing off and brought it into the new workshop for the big operation! Pic 1 - Honda CRV Pic 2 - Very Dirty Filter - Have to make changing it more possible! Pic 3 - Honda CRV air filter housing Pic 4 - Cutting the head of the bolt off Pic 5 - Pulling the threads out Pic 6 - New OEM bolt - About $25 for 5 that is $5 each!!! Pic 7 - Decapitated old rusty bolt. Parts man at Honda Dealer said these bolts are always breaking when servicing them in the shop!! Pic 8 - Screwing in new bolt into metal sleeve that pushes into housing so bolt does not fall out!
Hello More pics Before putting the new bolt into the housing and metal sleveve, we sprayed the inside of the sleeve with WD-40. It was tricky because we had to push the metal sleeve out of the plastic housing so we could get the vise grips in the end of the sleeve to hold it so the new bolt could be screwed in all the way!! Pic 9 - Banging sleeve into plastic housing Pic 10 - bolt sleeve in housing Pic 11 - Pushing head of bolt into sleeve so the top of the bolt that has no threads, turns freely in the metal sleeve in the plastic top housing. Pic 12 - Spraying Dry Moly on threads Pic 13-14 New bolts screwed into engine - all done It took about 2 Hours! It is $75 for the top air box and $40 to install it at a Honda dealer See Air Cleaner Housing Unit broken (2002 CR-V)
Yes it was quite a fix but once I did the first two it went better. Just glad I got them off ok! The new OEM bolts were black so they were treated to stand up better against rusting. They should be good for many more years now!
I have a little 2003 civic for commuting. In 280k+ miles, the only rust issues with hardware that I've had were the airbox bolts and caliper pins, which were probably my fault for not changing the boots more often. Nice write-up!
