I've never bothered using foil or pans or whatever. I just let it drip, try to get the filter out as quick as I can, and wipe the inside of the lower fairing with a rag when I'm done.
Oil changes take like 15mins. The limiting factor always seems to be how slow the new oil wants to go into the little hole...

 

Same here... I don't take off the fairing or anything, just reach my hand in and unscrew.

 

just did my oil change today, 2,700 miles on my bike, hadent done an oil change since the 600 mark like 2 yrs ago an realized even though i hadent reached 4k miles i was still overdue for an oil change.
this is the second time i use k&n (204) oil filter, surprised i hadent read anybody else use it, the old one was pretty hard to take off but am pretty sure thats due to the fact that it was almost 2 yrs since an oil change(bad i know, but was only like 2ks miles). and used 10w-40 castrol part synthetic motor oil for bikes.

 

Did my oil change today... first since I bought the bike.. I put 600 miles on it.. not sure the last time it was done, but oil looked good and filter was a honda.. put Rotella T 15W40 dino in it with a Mobil 1 M1-108 filter... shifting actually feels a bit smoother...

I used the alum foil trick for both the filter and the drain plug... worked great! thanks

 

ok did the oil change..... used mobil 1 oild and filter thanks for all the help

 

How do you get off a stubborn filter? I tried a universal filter wrench but couldn't even get it to fit in between the headers. Ideas?

 

those big channel lock wrenches work good (the ones made for oil filters) if that doesnt work punch a screwdriver through it. usually if its REALLY REALLY bad you can crush the filter doen to where its almost flat and then u got a good surface to grab-but dont damage the threads it goes on to!

 

I was worried with my headers too, but I had zero problems.. I have about 6 different oil filter wrenches (strap wrenches) from all of the cars I have had or worked on....

I used one like this but it was made for smaller diameter filters:


I took the left hand side fairing off, went in from the side.. within 2 seconds it was loose and coming off...

Good luck..
Adam

 

Adam,

That's the kind of wrench that I tried, but I guess I didn't try hard enough. I couldn't even get it positioned on the filter between the manifold. I'll give it another shot.

Vangill,

Thanks for the ideas. I think the previous owner thought things weren't tight enough if it was still humanly possible to remove it. I did my oil change a couple weeks ago and the drain plug felt just about as tight, except that I could actually get some leverage on it. The old oil looked clean enough, so I figured at that point I'd leave the filter on and deal with it later.

 

If I need to use the wrench, I often remove the radiator overflow bottle & have at it...gives me all the room I need.