Cleaning air filters

[Lonesome Dave]

Hank....you should be at the rally, not cleaning air filters!

And yes, just last night I did the same thing (actually thought of this thread) and it really does work well.

Just got back home from the rally (about 10:00 pm).  More people there than I expected for Thursday night, probably 9 or 10.

[Hank]

Hank....you should be at the rally, not cleaning air filters!

......

Just got back home from the rally (about 10:00 pm).  More people there than I expected for Thursday night, probably 9 or 10.

It kills me to be missing it...

[greatbuffalo]

One of the new guys at the rally learned a great lesson in filter cleaning and maintenance in general.

[Hank]

So I cleaned a few air filters again last night and again appreciated how well this method works, so here's a bump in case anyone hasn't tried it yet.   My filter from our BH ride a few weeks ago was really dirty.. and looked just about perfect with only a few minutes of work.

The only annoying part of doing it this way is filtering the mineral spirits when you're done.  I usually pour the whole jug of spirits into another container, wash my air filters, rinse, then when I'm done I pour the spirits back through a rag into a funnel back into the can.

I've yet to find a good filtering method.   I've tried coffee filters, they just plug instantly, so I usually use a 10x10 or so piece of t-shirt material.  2 dirty filters is about all you want to do or you end up with so much dirt and grime in the spirits that your filter cloth is plugged solid and won't filter.   I've done three and it took an hour for the last few cups to drip back into the can.

Anyone have any good ideas for that?     A pressure pot with a couple stages of pre-filtering screens and a cartridge filter sounds nice, but might be overkill

[Bogus Jim]

I let the container of dirty spirits sit (covered) for a day or two. All the dirt settles to the bottom. Then if you don't shake the container too much, you can pour it through a filter without clogging. There's about 1/8" of sludge at the bottom, rather than try to filter that I just discard it.

I tried the coffee filters too, but ended up just using old t-shirts.

[greatbuffalo]

You beat me to it Jim.

Let those particles and sludge fall to the bottom. Then pour off the top and filter that.

I just went thru this thread again and really would like to try that No-Toil stuff, bet its expensive, haven't looked yet. It would be cool to find a cheap, small apartment washer just for that use.

[Hank]

That's a really good and pretty obvious solution.  It only requires patience, so I'm not surprised I never thought of it
I'll do that next time.  Thanks!

[sandhillrider]

We use a 2 gal jug of parts solvent. Dump some in a old baking pan and clean the air filter then just dump the solvent back in jug. If you don't shake jug you don't have to filter as solids will stay on bottom.

[Lonesome Dave]

I really like this method, but I only use a small quantity of mineral spirits.  It cleans the filter quickly.  I use a couple gallons of water for the rinse.  I dump the dirty spirits in with dirty oil container.  I don't use a gallon a per year, so its cheap enough to dump.  Hmm....maybe I should clean filters more often!

[Fletch]

I may have to give this a try when my can of filter cleaner is empty..