The Honda service manual calls for inspections every 12,000 miles and replacement “when necessary”.Luckily it’s an easy and straight forward process, requiring few tools and little mechanical ability.
Tools needed
5 MM allen wrench
Long shank medium JIS or Phillip’s screw driver
Air cleaner Honda part number 17210-MEJ-981
Start by putting your bike on the center stand. Move around to the right hand side of the bike.
Use the 5 mm allen wrench (There’s one in your factory tool kit btw) to remove the screw at the bottom of the right side cover, and set screw aside.
Remove the right side cover and set it aside. Note there are 2 plastic tabs also holding the side cover on a vertical blade in the rear, top left,and your typical button type in the front top right. Grab on the sides of the cover and pull straight out to pop those loose. Set side cover aside.
It should now look like this. The piece directly in the middle with the raised portions is the air duct assembly covering the air cleaner
There are 3 black Phillips head screws holding on the air cleaner duct assembly on, at approx. 12 o’clock (top), 2 o’clock (right side) and 6 o’clock (right side bottom) if viewed as if looking at the face of a clock. The bottom one is kind of hard to see. A small flashlight will help if necessary.
Take a long shank Phillip’s screw driver and remove those 3 screws and set them aside. You may have to push some electrical connections out of the way to get to them, but you do not have to disconnect any wires.
Top
Right side
Bottom
Once those 3 screws are removed, remove the Air duct assembly, exposing the air cleaner. You may have to jiggle the cover some to get it out. Set air duct assy cover aside
Now simply slide out the long round air cleaner assembly.
Inspect the inside of the air cleaner. If not full of debris or wet dirt, you can gently tap it to remove loose dust and then blow compressed air through it, from the outside in, to remove any imbedded dust. Once clean you can reuse.
This is mine after 26,000 miles. Notice it’s fairly clean but there is a bit of debris inside which blew out. It could probably go another 12,000 miles but since I had a new one on hand, I decided to go ahead and replace it.
Slide the air filter in with hole facing outward
Replace the air duct assy cover, wiggling it into place, and the 3 phillips screws that hold the cover on. Top, right side and bottom. Torque spec is 0.8 ft lb, or in laymans terms, just snug em up.
Put a little spit or WD40 on the two rubber grommets for the side cover tabs, and pop those into place. Reinstall the allen screw at the bottom using the 5 MM allen wrench.
Boom, you’re done. Now both you and your CB can breathe easier.