I have been making my own cabin filters from disposable material for a while now because I hate paying the price for the OE pleated paper filters.
While the way I was doing it was just fine ($8.00 worth of material for probably six filter swaps) I decided to go ahead and try an easier solution and go with a washable media in frames, similar to what a couple of people have made in the past, but no longer seem to have available.
I bought the filter pictured for $20.00 from Home Depot. This is the only cost for the entire project. As you can see from the photos, there is enough washable filter media for probably six filter pairs. This filter also comes with it's own plastic adjustable frame, so that eliminated the need to find some other framework...You can't make enough frames to make use of all the filter media supplied, but you could of course use some other plastic or aluminum channel if desired. I think this would be a great project at Titan meets.
Anyway, I'll post the photos (only 5 are allowed per post) to give an idea how this is done. I know it's not rocket science...the whole thing took me about 20 minutes, start to finish. Just take your Nissan filter, mark the new media, and cut with scissors. The plastic grid that goes on each side of the media takes a knife to cut. Don't worry about making the dimension exact...cut it about 1/4" short because there is plenty of play with the plastic framework.
I cut the framing with a fine tooth pullsaw, but I also tried it on a chop saw, and it worked fine.
The framing is supposed to be adjustable when it comes out of the package, so part of it slides within the other half. This means you don't have to worry about miter cuts. Just slide the smaller frame into the larger frame and you are done. I used electrical tape to hold the whole thing together and it worked perfectly. When I went to slide the filters into the box, it fit like a glove, first time.
While the way I was doing it was just fine ($8.00 worth of material for probably six filter swaps) I decided to go ahead and try an easier solution and go with a washable media in frames, similar to what a couple of people have made in the past, but no longer seem to have available.
I bought the filter pictured for $20.00 from Home Depot. This is the only cost for the entire project. As you can see from the photos, there is enough washable filter media for probably six filter pairs. This filter also comes with it's own plastic adjustable frame, so that eliminated the need to find some other framework...You can't make enough frames to make use of all the filter media supplied, but you could of course use some other plastic or aluminum channel if desired. I think this would be a great project at Titan meets.
Anyway, I'll post the photos (only 5 are allowed per post) to give an idea how this is done. I know it's not rocket science...the whole thing took me about 20 minutes, start to finish. Just take your Nissan filter, mark the new media, and cut with scissors. The plastic grid that goes on each side of the media takes a knife to cut. Don't worry about making the dimension exact...cut it about 1/4" short because there is plenty of play with the plastic framework.
I cut the framing with a fine tooth pullsaw, but I also tried it on a chop saw, and it worked fine.
The framing is supposed to be adjustable when it comes out of the package, so part of it slides within the other half. This means you don't have to worry about miter cuts. Just slide the smaller frame into the larger frame and you are done. I used electrical tape to hold the whole thing together and it worked perfectly. When I went to slide the filters into the box, it fit like a glove, first time.
