Patent ID: 8662634

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: a liquid ejection head having nozzles to eject droplets of liquid; a head tank to supply the liquid to the liquid ejection head; a liquid storage container to store the liquid; a liquid supply passage connecting the head tank to the liquid storage container; a liquid feed device to feed the liquid from the liquid storage container to the head tank via the liquid supply passage; a control valve disposed at the liquid supply passage to open and close quid supply passage between the head tank and the liquid storage container; and a suction device to suck the liquid from the nozzles, wherein the head tank comprises a filter to filter the liquid, a flow channel to supply the liquid to the liquid ejection head, a deformable wall face member opposed to the filter and forming a wall face of the flow channel, and a gap maintaining elastic member disposed in the head tank to urge the wall face member in a direction to increase a gap between the wall face member and the filter, and wherein, when the suction device sucks the liquid from the nozzles with the control valve closed, the wall face member deforms in a direction to approach the filter.