How to Replace Air Cleaner Assembly 2003-08 Toyota Matrix

Okay, friends. To get started on the air filter box, we're gonna come right here to the mass airflow sensor. We want to get that right out of the way. Go ahead and squeeze on this tab right here and get this right off. I always like to take a peek at any electrical connectors and make sure there's no funny colors. If there is, it needs to be serviced. We'll set this aside. You wanna remove the two bolts that hold the mass airflow sensor to the box itself. We're gonna go ahead and set that aside as well. Grab that mass airflow sensor, carefully lift it up and out and give it a quick inspection. If yours is dirty like ours, it's a great idea to clean it down or replace it. If you're going to clean it, make sure you clean it with specific mass air flow sensor cleaner and not a regular parts cleaner. We'll set this aside. Let's go ahead and remove this bolt that's holding our wiring harness. Take that off of there. Now, if you follow the wire, you're going to see it's also connected down here. You can usually pull that off or just use a little forkey tool and pop it right off there.

Next, we need to loosen the clamp right here that holds the hose to the box itself. If you were to look down along the side, you're going to find a little 10-millimeter headed bolt. That's going to be the adjustment point. Go ahead and spray that down with some penetrant to help it along. Let's go ahead and loosen that. Once you have the clamp loose, just take a nice screwdriver or pry bar, come in between here, and get that hose off of there. Now, we're gonna unclamp our two clips. Lift this up. We'll get this right out of the way. Next, it's going to be time to remove our three mounting bolts. There should be one right here, another one right there, and a third right down here. Ours has one. So, that'll be the one that I remove. Go ahead and take this, carefully lift it up. You're going to notice that you have your air inlet tube right here, we want to carefully slide that out as well. It's got a couple of little clippies here that might make it a little bit difficult, but if you just kind of twist it and work it, it should happen. Now that that's out of the way, I have a clear view of my three mounting points. I have one right there that worked fine. And these two over here were, of course, broken previously. Now would be a perfect time to drill these out. And, of course, retap the holes so you can put in new bolts.

The next thing I always like to do is just spray a little bit of copper never-seize on any of the mounting holes. And those are obviously broken, but I would do those as well. Lower portion of our air filter box in here now. Go ahead and slide it in just like this. And then we're going to slide this tube into the air filter box. Should click right in. Make sure it's secure. Now, of course, we'll bolt it down. Line it up with your bolt holes, put in all three of your bolts. Okay. That's bottomed out. Give it a teeny bit more. Do the same to all the rest. Now it's gonna be time to install our air filter. It's a good time to replace it if you realize that yours is dirty. Let's go ahead and put that right down in there. You'll notice that the filter itself has three rounded corners and one squared off corner. The squared off corner is going to go towards the left front of the vehicle. Now, on your cover, what you might realize is there's going to be a little piton here that leads into the air filter box. Some of these vehicles are gonna have a hose that connects onto it, others won't. If your vehicle does not have a hose that connects onto it, find yourself a nice boot or a cover of some sort and make sure that you cover it. This needs to be covered, or it needs to have a hose on it. If it doesn't, there's a possibility you could suck dirty air into your engine.

Looking at the air filter housing top, you're gonna see that it has a couple of little hooky-dos here. They're gonna fit into the slots on the lower aspect of it. Once you have them fitted in, you would just roll this down and then, of course, clip it. I'm going to come right up here to the hose. Slide it right on there. You want to line up the piton with the hose. Now, like I said, with those little hooky-dos, slide them down in there, roll it down, and then let's latch this in. There it is. Now, let's go ahead and tighten up our hose clamp here. Give the hose a nice tug, make sure it's secure. It has to be 100% tight. Now it's going to be time to reinstall our mass air flow sensor. Something that I want to mention is you want to make sure that the gasket that goes around the base of it is nice and clean. If it's dirty, obviously, that's going to be an issue. Let's go ahead and line up our bolt holes, just like this. You want to have the harness facing towards the rear of the vehicle. Start in both of your screws and then snug them up. Let's go ahead and get this on there. This piece right here should slide down into the bracket area. Slide it right down. Start in your bolt, tighten it up. That wire down, make sure you re-secure it down here as well. Now, we'll plug in our mass air flow sensor. Make sure it's clipped in. It needs to be tight.