How to Replace Engine Air Filter 1994-2002 Dodge Ram 1500

Hey friends, it's Len here at 1A Auto. Today we're going to be working on our 1996 Dodge Ram 1500 Laramie with a 5.9, and I'm going to show you something very basic, replacing an air filter. It's super easy. I can do it. You can do it too. And as always, if you need this or any other part you can always check us out at 1AAuto.com. Thanks.

All right. So the air filter itself is located right inside here. To get this open you've got three clips right here, and you might think that that's going to be it. The problem is that it isn't all that you have to do. Back here there's a clamp that comes around and it holds this unit down to the throttle body, so what we need to do is we need to loosen this clamp up, not all the way to the point it comes apart, but just loose enough so we can wiggle this around and then eventually get it off.

So I start like this, pop these off just like that, come over here with our flathead screwdriver, turn it counterclockwise. Underneath this there's going to be a gasket. If your gasket is no good you can either make a new one or you can of course buy a new one, but you definitely want to make sure that there's a gasket under there. If for some reason yours doesn't have a gasket, you need to figure that out.

Get this loose. See if I can pull it up. Here we are. Here's our air filter. Here's our brand new one. I would say we're probably going to get a lot more airflow through the new one, where this one is obviously very gunked up. Something to note is just to make sure you have the same shape, you have the same dimensions lengthwise, widthwise. Height doesn't really matter as much, but it's always a good idea to have it about the same. This looks pretty great, so I would say let's go ahead and install this.

Set the old one aside and grab our new one. Slide it up in here just like this. It sets right in. If yours isn't setting in there right obviously it must be off. Maybe it's hanging out on this side or on this side. Something is going on, but it needs to sit down in there and it'll pretty much just flop right in.

You need to take this... We're going to put this down. Okay, this part is super important. You need to make sure that you press down on this while you tighten this clamp until it's at least semi-tightened, so that way you can make sure that this box itself is seated down onto the throttle body.

The clamp essentially looks like this, and then you've got your lip for your throttle body here, and then the lip for the air filter housing on top. When the clamp tightens it goes like this and it holds those two pieces together. If you leave it loose those can do this. What's going to go in between here? A lot of really dirty air.

Okay, that's pretty much where it bottomed out. Just give it a little bit... Give this a squeeze. Give this a nice little wiggle. That feels pretty great. Try to give it a lift. If it feels like it pops up then obviously it's not down all the way. Let me try to give this a couple more turns here just a little bit.

Oh, yeah, that baby's tight now. We're going to have no dirty air getting pulled down into that engine. See, easy peasy.

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