so how do you clean the filter
and do you clean it every oil change

I was thinking either degreaser and blasting out with water
or dunking in a solvent and blowing out with air compressor from the inside

 

soak, soft toothbrush, swirl, rinse and shake in charcoal fluid or gasoline.....

i also have a ultrasonic jewelry cleaner i've been thinking about using...

clean it every oil change...only time i found stuff was flakes of silicone i scraped off during my valve adjustment..don't do an oil change when doing a valve check or adjustment....oil change and filter clean/replace after a long test ride after a valve check...

 

21 million VW's were built with these:


The VW design traps the heavy stuff in the sump. The screen really doesn't catch much. Gravity does all the work.

My Honda dirtbike has a screen like this:


It can't be catching much of anything. Paper filters are cheap, effective, and easy.

When you clean screen filters, use something like kerosene (lantern fluid). Cheap and less flammable. The headaches afterwards are not as bad.

 

When I had the metal-mesh filter in my KLR, the research I did indicated that the sonic cleaner did an excellent job with those filters. Without that method I was never totally comfortable about how clean my stainless filter was. Carefully cleaning and rinsing it trying to maintain one-way flow of the cleaning medium was a pain.

 

yeah probably going the paper route since im getting the magnetic plug
at least its easier to clean by throwing it away

planning on changing oil every 2000 miles
im using motul 51xx cant remember the exact number
has ester in it
use that in all my bikes but all my other bikes I change the oil at 1000 miles since they only hold like 600ml

at least the klx holds alot more oil, and has better filter, water cooled
so I dont have to worry too much about heat degrading the oil like all my air cooled bikes

 

i'll be the guinea pig and continue to use this permanent metal oil filter....i'm over 13,000 miles (21,000 km)....i'll report if this metal oil filter ever causes any problems....

i run about 80% at near wot freeways/highways....20% mountain twisties and local streets...

the metal mesh filter is nothing like a standard metal mesh...this is super fine....i can't even stick in the thinnest fishing line through...i do 2,500 ~ 3,000 mile oil change intervals...using yamalube semi-syn, but switching soon to shell rotwella full-syn when my yamalube runs out...

 

My two cents...we can discuss oil filtration all day. What is at LEAST equally important is your air filter. I've seen guys get positively **** about oil type/weight/filtration-specs to 1/gazillion micron......and leave their pre-oiled K&N with 10 years of mud, dust, and crap (and partially deteriorated and separating) on their bike. Really? Where does the unfiltered off-road dust go exactly, if it doesn't crap your carb??
Use a trusted, brand name oil filter and air filter. (Steel mesh, foam, paper, whichever you prefer.) Use a trusted (and proper spec) oil. Change each, routinely, or more often with "extreme service." Magnets are your friend. If you can use a magnetic drain plug, do it. If you want to use a "Filter Mag" or other external filter stick-on device, do it. The majority of cylinder wear comes from the very fine grit. Filters (oil AND air) and magnets help minimize and control the fine grit nasties. Better to drain/change too often than once in 10 years because "I only put 2000 miles on her...haven't hit the magic number yet!" What you use (type/brand/spec) IS important. Frequency of maintenance is even more important, IMHO.

 

Quite true!

Little story about dust:
Our fire trucks (all off/dirt road vehicles) have the pumps mounted at the back of the vehicle. Back in ye olde days they were all petrol (gas for the yanks) engines and they had to be left running all the time even when we were only stopping once in a while to black something out (final stages of mopping up a bushfire). This was SOP and required because the environmental conditions often caused vapour locks and would prevent them from starting. Engines getting "dusted" wasn't uncommon since at the back of the truck all the dust and soot we're driving over clouds up around the pump but the need for them to start NOW when required outweighed longer term issues.
Anyway, these days we run diesel pumps for a couple of reasons. They don't tend to explode if the truck is caught in an "overrun" where the fire literally travels over, under and through the truck if it can, and they don't vapour lock if allowed to stop in hot conditions. Now the SOPs require us to stop the pumps while driving around, if they're not immediately needed, to reduce the risk of dusting the engines of our $30k pumps.

I intend to put a magnet of some kind in or on the inline fuel filter on my next bike as well as the oil filter and for the same reason. I'll need this bike to last me MINIMUM five years, preferably ten or longer, and fuel, oil and air cleanliness is the only way to ensure that. Magnets, properly installed, are very cheap insurance, as are good quality filters.

 

I'd expect more wear from dust ingestion (offroad) than the difference between paper or stainless oil filter. Point being, how many running high flow foam filters diss the stainless oil filter?

 

(Just a footnote for the record. I'm not being critical of anyone who uses a "specialty" i.e. s/s mesh filter. There are some great products out there, for a price. Whatever helps keep the gunk out of our engines is OK in my book.)