Air Filter Maintenance?

How often do you guys clean and oil your air filter? I know this depends a lot from the conditions you ride in, but give us a general idea of what terrain you ride and how often you clean it. (so it may be helpful to other members also).

My R is my commuter and does about 90% street, 10% dirt (mud, grassy, soil, some dust).


Also how often do you replace your air filter with a new one? Every X amount of miles or after X amounts of months/years?

I ride in alot of dust. I clean it every couple of rides. When it's less dusty, spring and fall, I do every 5 rides or so. When to replace?? Not sure on that.

On a dirt bike, it's practically every ride.

On a bike that gets split between street and dirt, it's after every dirt ride that's longer than a couple of minutes or every week, whatever comes first.
In other words, if your bike stays on the street Monday through Friday and gets a trail ride on the weekend, I'd do it after the trail ride.
Don't kid yourself.

If the bike stays 100% on the street, I'd do it once a month but no longer because the filter oil will eventually become less effective over time.
Also, believe it of not, your filter does filter dirt even while on the street, just not as much.

The once-every-blue-moon schedule shown in the Owner's Manual is for a street-only bike, but I feel that's still too long.

Cleaned and oiled my air filter today. However I think I over-oiled it.

when I tried turning it on later on, it wouldn't start. it was hesitating as if it didn't get enough air. removed the side panel and opened up the airbox. Bike started with some throttle. I left it to idle/revved it a bit for a few minutes with the open airbox door. Turned it off, put everything back together and it started fine. went for a ride, no problem. started right back up again.

So it seems to be fine now, but I am a bit worried? what would happen if there really is too much oil in the filter? should I take it back out and squeeze more oil out of it? or is what happened normal if you lube it a bit too much? and is this a problem?

If I were worried I over oiled it, I would:

Remove the air filter foam from the metal cage that fits inside of it.
Wrap the filter foam inside and out with some clean paper towels.
Squeeze out as much oil as you can.
If I were surprised how much oil came out, I'd repeat this one more time.
Put it back together.

I bought my WR² used this summer, with 3400km (~2,000 miles), from a guy who rode strictly on the road. When I checked the air filter, whatever was used on it was so sticky, it took me 5 minutes to gently peel the foam away from the steel flange it seats against. There are traces of foam still stuck on it. [And that steel flange is sharp and can cut you; ask me how I know]

The Varsol I cleaned the filter in turned the colour of cardboard, and soap and water wouldn't get the stickiness off my hands.

I cleaned the filter, oiled it with air-filter spray oil, wiped the flange with grease, and reassembled, but now I need to buy a new filter because this one doesn't look new anymore. I'll buy a Twin Air and save this one for a spare.

Is this super sticky sh*t from the factory, or something weird the previous owner used?

I use Bel-Ray foam filter oil, and it is very sticky and can be tough to clean up with soap and hot water.
My filter still looks in great shape at 15000 kms and a few cleanings...

mucker wrote:

I use Bel-Ray foam filter oil, and it is very sticky and can be tough to clean up with soap and hot water.
My filter still looks in great shape at 15000 kms and a few cleanings...

So sticky you can't peel it away from the flange without foam filter bits being stuck to it? I doubt yours would look new with the crap mine had on it.

I'm pissed that I feel like I need a new $25 filter for a bike with 3,000 miles because it was installed with something more like spray adhesive than oil.

I just ordered a can of PJ1 Foam Air Filter Treatment to use after the K&N spray filter oil runs out.