I've never owned a bike with a foam/ oiled air filter, how often does one take it out and clean it? i'm not doing alot of offroading mabye on the weekends, mostly back and forth around town? thanks in advance,
No Toil makes good air filter cleaner & oil. Clean filter thoroughly with the cleaner. Let it dry. Oil it. Done!
I would say that conditions encountered dictate when the filter needs to be cleaned. If it's dusty, sandy, muddy or you get it wet from puddles it will show signs of needing to be cleaned as in dirty looking. I always cleaned my after every race, or if multiple days of riding when it wasn't really sandy/muddy dusty conditons when I was done 2-3 days.The amount of time you spend riding hours/miles can also be an indication of when to clean. The best way is a visual inspection if it looks dirty clean it. What you don't want happening is the dirt/sand crud migrating into the motor, past the air filter. I have always bought 2 or 3 new filters and just changed them when dirty and when all of them were dirty I'd do the cleaning ritual.
What I do is keep a spare clean & oiled filter in a ziploc baggie hanging in the garage. The excess oil settles to the bottom of the bag, so you don't get that goop collection in the bottom of your airbox. When the filter I'm using gets dirty, I swap them out.
