Hi guys,

I know for cars, unless you have an aftermarket filter (eg. K&N) most are disposable after they get too dirty.

However, this old post gives me the impression that the stock air filter can be cleaned. Is that true?
http://www.nsr250.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7248&highlight=filter+clean

just wash out the stock filter with gas & squeeze dry?

thanks!

Well, it is sponge....
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Don't use petrol, it breaks down the foam! I use a product called no-toil on my dirt bikes, it works really well. Or use methylated spirits to break down the oil, then wash with warm soapy water. Hang out to dry (not in the sun, the UV will attack the foam too) then re-oil with your favorite air-filter oil and your good to go!

http://www.notoil.com/prod.html

Here's the link to no-toil. Its also "green" if your worried about carbons and two strokes environmental impacts??

pvan340 wrote:
Don't use petrol, it breaks down the foam!

I've got 20+ year old NSR foam filters that have been pretty much constantly in contact with standoff and petrol vapour, and they are as good as new. I think someone's scaremongering... probably a company trying to sell over-priced cleaning agents!

We would always clean the foam filters in the chainsaws and pertol disc cutters with a petrol/2T mix (which in high season could be 2 or 3 times a day) when I was a service engineer in the hire trade, and it never caused the elements to break down. That was some serious cleaning too, to get the concrete dust out of them!
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Andy.
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Andy wrote:

pvan340 wrote:
Don't use petrol, it breaks down the foam!

I've got 20+ year old NSR foam filters that have been pretty much constantly in contact with standoff and petrol vapour, and they are as good as new. I think someone's scaremongering... probably a company trying to sell over-priced cleaning agents!

We would always clean the foam filters in the chainsaws and pertol disc cutters with a petrol/2T mix (which in high season could be 2 or 3 times a day) when I was a service engineer in the hire trade, and it never caused the elements to break down. That was some serious cleaning too, to get the concrete dust out of them!

Cool, must be the crappy quality of the filters I buy! I've just been told bad things about petrol opening the foam etc. Good to hear an alternate experience. I usually use metho and hot soapy water, gets my dirt bike ones shiny and clean again. Sealing the buggers against dust is another matter altogether! So nice not to have to worry too much about that problem with road bikes.

pvan340 wrote:
...must be the crappy quality of the filters I buy!

Not Suzuki ones, are they?!

Seriously though, the OEM NSR filter is pretty good quality, and I've not seen many that have needed replacement. Normally the replaced ones have been torn or distorted (from sitting under a pile of rusty spares or something!), substituted with a less dense (i.e. freer-flowing) item, or replaced due to the original being lost/missing in the first place!
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Andy.
NSR-WORLD.COM

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Ha Ha no, Kawasaki! But not oem ones to give team green some credit! Just the one crappy brand the "bike shops" are paid? to stock..........

Who out there oils there filter on a road bike i carn`t see the use of restricting you filter to ride on tar roads . Unless you use your nsr for motocross .

It's a known fact in dirt bike racing that cleaning the filters with petrol ruins them.
It takes a while, but I've seen the effects first hand.

It makes the foam stiff and brittle and eats the little microscopic holes in the foam, leaving only larger holes which will let fine dust through.

I race motocross and enduro here in South Australia, which is probably one of the dustiest places on earth, so I go through HEAPS of air filters.

I clean mine in turps, then use Belray filter oil on my filters, (really thick) and Rock Oil filter oil on my filter skins, (much thinner).

I haven't played much with road bikes, (yet) but I reckon a thin filter oil would be the go as they don't get anywhere near as much dust as our dirt bikes.