Thank you everyone for all of the great info in this thread!! With all the info here I just changed the fuel filter on my 2005 4.4i (76k miles) and wanted to put in my 2 cents on the procedure in hopes of helping others.

1. The fuse trick was fantastic (fuse 47 -fuel pump for reference)! I had no idea where the fuse box was in the glove compartment so it took me a bit of sleuthing to realize once the glove box was open it was accessible via the plastic panel near the top back of the glove compartment. The X ran for a few seconds before dying from lack of fuel...

2. The protective paneling was by far the most difficult part of the whole procedure. Once I removed all the bolts, i was confident I could shimmy the panel open further so I could have more room to access the fuel filter but after a half hour of frustration I had to come to terms that it was a tight fit through the front of the paneling. Don't even waste your time trying to pry the paneling off further once you can get two hands into the fuel filter.

3. Once I was able to get to the filter, the info on how to disconnect the fuel lines from ripp222 was crucial. I'm more of a visual learner so I wanted to give a diagram on where to pinch the connectors for reference (imagebam link - click for larger pic):



Once you pinch the connector with your thumb and index fingers tightly, the clamps slide right off.

4. My vacuum hose was by far the toughest to remove and ended up cracking at the tip like SlickGT1's did. I cut it off the cracked tip via his recommendation and slid it back on to the new filter and all was well!

All in all the actual filter change took maybe 5 minutes max and I spent about an hour screwing around with the stupid plastic cover.

I cut open the filter to see how it looked after 6.5 years and 76k miles and this was the result (click for larger pics):




All in all the throttle seems to be more responsive but obviously this is subjective. After seeing the condition of the filter material I'm definitely glad I changed it!