Do you ride in dusty areas?

I ride in thick dust often, and I found dirt in the intake starting at the airbox - again.

The filter and cage - immaculate inside. But where the breather hose and AIS suction hose plug into the airbox...

Looks like the two elbows are too loose in the bottom of the intake rubber, letting dirt into the intake and engine.

I sealed them with silicone, hoping the O2 sensor doesn't notice.

The AIS pump must have a gutful of dust judging by the dirt in its suction pipe. Why the hell does this sort of s**t happen? Not that I care about the AIS, but I do care about my intake stuff and engine.

Exactly how do you service your air filter, and what chemicals do you use?

I probably break a few rules, but what works, well, it works.

At home, I dump the filter in mineral turps to get rid of the oil, grease and most of the dirt.

At work, we are up to 350km from the nearest town, so we use fuel instead of turps.

I then get some mild washing machine liquid and tip heaps in a bucket, filll it up with clean, warm water and wash the rest of the dirt out. I do this as soon as possible after using solvent to reduce damage to the filter material and the glue holding it together.

I have a selection of spare filters and a cage (all the same as my TTR250 I've used for years - they've accumulated), so I let the washed one(s) air dry, and fit the clean filter. I find this is the hard part, as I'm never really sure if the filter is sealing properly (same as with the TTR).

Often I use a folded section of oiled Chux wipe to prefilter the dirt, and either BelRay or Motul filter oil. As we're not overly interested in getting the most high-end performance from our engines, we use a lot of filter oil and squeeze out the minimum that will allow reasonable performance. We've discovered over many years that the recommended squeezing of as much oil from the filter as possible can lead to a dusted motor, because there is no way we do this every day. The filters are cleaned after (in my case) 1000km, one week, or 50hrs operation. In other words, we change the engine oil and service the air cleaner at the same time.

Other people run theirs out to 2000km intervals, but mostly that's too much for those of us who own our bikes. The station employees have theirs provided. We are contractors, thus supply our own bikes for the arduous task of working with stock. The work  is very hard on bikes, and there is a lot of dirt on the filters at service time.

In my opinion, if the place you regularly ride in looks as dusty as the pic you posted, I would service the air filter more often.
I imagine you posted that pic to inform readers what it's like where you ride as well as perhaps get a reaction to that pic, and my reaction is:
It looks very dusty.
Clean and oil air filter more often.

Plus, seal any leaks in the intake if you spot them.
I never found any with my WR-250R or WR-250X, but it certainly isn't unheard of with a motorcycle being ridden in a dust bowl.

Maybe swap the filter out mid week especially if you have a few spares. Then clean the filters as you have been each week on some down time. Wash 2 filters instead of 1. Just a thought but damn that's dusty. I travel western NSW but mainly for work and the work ute gets put through that punishment not the bike.

Thanks for your replies and opinions.

You are, as far is I know, recreational rider(s). I am too, but not in this circumstance. With respect, you seem to be of the opinion that we are a bunch of beginners who know nothing about our bikes, whereas we are all people who have spent a lifetime finding out what works and what does not in the maintenance area. We have to balance economics against what is practical. Let me assure you that after a big day on the bike (and most of them are) the last thing anyone wants to do is be buggering around with a motorbike until they have to. One contract can last for weeks, 7 days, up at 4.30 - 5am, returning on huge days at 8 - 9pm. Very often the bikes are left out in the open where we finish for the day, to be fuelled again and ready to go next morning.

Considering my TTR250 has >70,000km on the clock without replacing any engine parts apart from starter clutch and stator assembly, I think you'll agree that we do care sufficiently for our bikes.

The WR-R is a new kid on the block - mine being the first one in my area so we are rapidly learning what goes wrong and what needs correcting. Your suggestion that I seal the airbox is just what my thread is about, and I have. I did take pains to state that no dirt in visible quantity had passed through the filter. There is a fault (another) with my bike, which, as I stated, is the two spigots pushed into the airbox were leaking dirt. My job reveals faults with bikes that average users never find, including the long-distance, full throttle people. Most engines cope much better with that kind of thing than operating at slow speeds in very hot weather.

I raised the subject simply to alert owners to the possible issue of those spigots leaking dust. The filter is fine, it does not need to swapped every day. I do appreciate your input, but our maintenance schedule is not up for scrutiny or justification. It is tried and proven. In my opinion many owners over-service their filters.
In fact, among my peers I am considered guilty of that crime myself. As I said above, 2,000km is a common cleaning interval. Bit far for me, though.

wow I see what you mean now I just checked those elbows, I think mine are tight enough but when wiggling them around I see how dust can get sucked in as they're kinda loose.

Also I just recently removed the AIS and when doing so I did notice some dust in that elbow but not enough for me to worry about. I think what I saw was probably just what had accumulated over the bikes 7,000mi(10,000km?) life. Have you checked on yours before? hopefully it took a long time to build up what you saw.

Fair enough, then, 66T.
That's only my opinion on your information.
Seal the known leaks on your intake and keep at it.

I ride in dust a bit and I haven't noticed any dirt in the intake, but now I will check!! It does seem like the filter will go a long time on this bike before needing cleaning. I ride the WRR mainly for dualsport, so dust isn't quite as bad as a dirt bike. One thing I don't like about the WRR is it is hard to tell when the filter is seated correctly - it still seems to wiggle around and the foam seems a bit loose on the cage. I use grease on the seating surface but that is a quite time consuming process.

In the past, when trail riding with groups, I have done a lot of dust. The worst filter I had was a K&N. When I got my XR400 the previous owner had installed one. It would work fine until it was covered with dust, and then it would simply plug up and the bike wouldn't run above 1/4 throttle. One nice thing about the Honda was if I recall a single 1/4 turn Dzus fastener to gain access.

My KTM 640 Adventure had a very small filter. I have heard it was the same element used on the KTM 60! It would plug up after only a couple of days of dust. Piss poor performance for an "adventure" bike! I had a Gasgas 300 2 stroke and it didn't have a real airbox. It just had plastic parts bolted on to form a box, but it wasn't at all air tight. So in dusty or muddy conditions, dirt would just pour into the airbox and plug up the filter.

No worries. Opinions are good, and environments differ.

I totally agree about not being sure whether the filter is sealing! Nervous every time. The TTR has the same filter and cage, and is just as hit-and-miss as to whether the filter is sealing. Like you, I usually use grease. Cheap insurance.

I forgot to add that in my voyage of discovery re WR-R for my work I've had the odd hiccup. But regardless, every day on the way to work I look forward to riding that excellent little bike.

It's good to ride, never gives up in tough conditions (eg so hard to stall it's ridiculous ), steers well and responds very well. The photo I posted shows conditions that aren't too unusual when moving stock. Have a look at the weird situation below. A hot morning, so still and airless it was crazy. Poor sheep. The entire mob was more than 5,000 critters. We had to walk them 26km that day. My bike showed nearly 150km at the end of it, which is, of course, all cross-country.

I also forgot to say to blusmoke that there was a lot of dirt lining the AIS pipe. That's the first time I've checked mine. On the face of it the elbows look fine, but moving them reveals some slop. They're fairly hard to remove and replace, but slightly loose when installed in my bike.

https://i.servimg.com/u/f59/19/06/19/89/no_bre11.jpg