If you consider yourself a “dirt biker”, a good habit to have is, always check your air filter after every ride or race. If your race/ride was not dusty it MIGHT not be necessary to clean but when the filter does need to be cleaned, it can no longer do its job of stopping dirt.

For starters, figure out where your air filter is located. It varies from bike to bike. On Beta’s you just remove the LH side cover and boom it’s there. Sherco’s have their air filters underneath the seat. Once you find the air filter, be sure to inspect it, if it looks ragged and falling apart safe to say it is time for a new one.

Take a clean bowl or pan and pour some of your favorite cleaner in it, sometimes a small amount can go a long way. Lots of good options out there, such as Maxima, Bel Ray, and No Toil. Some brands recommend to use their air filter oil with their cleaners for best results. Soak the dirty air filter in the cleaner. Foam filter cleaners gets the oil and most of the dirt off.

Next, use some warm soapy water to rinse the rest of the dirt out of the filter. Gently ring it out. Before it can be installed the filter needs to be completely dry, so go ahead and hang it up to let it air dry.

While the air filter is out of the air box, it is a good idea to clean it up as well. Twin Air makes an air filter plug for almost all bikes out there. Install it and use a degreaser to get it cleaned.

Now that you have a dry, clean air filter refer to last weeks blog post to install.