Re: KTM Duke 390 - Ownership Reviews and Experiences

Got the bike serviced. The cable was the culprit. Clutch plate is fine. Service advisor told that they have lubed the cable and made some adjustments to it, back to normal now!

Re: KTM Duke 390 - Ownership Reviews and Experiences

Lovely! Exactly as I predicted! Make sure you replace the cable if need be and make sure it's routed right.

Cheers!
VJ

Re: KTM Duke 390 - Ownership Reviews and Experiences

Finally changed the luk of my bike. Do giv ur feedback guys..

Re: KTM Duke 390 - Ownership Reviews and Experiences

When Yamaha is love.

Re: KTM Duke 390 - Ownership Reviews and Experiences

Hi fellow riders. I am facing an issue in my D390. My ride is a December 2014 model with close to 18K kms on ODO. So the matter of concern is sometimes my rear brake is getting locked. When I use to tap my rear brake, it gets stuck and the caliper continues to hold the disc even after removing my foot from the brake pedal. And after tapping and releasing the rear brake pedal 2-3 times, it un-holds the disk. Its not happening frequently but does happens 2-3 times a day.

Riders please give your valuable input on the same.
Thanks in advance [emoji846]

Re: KTM Duke 390 - Ownership Reviews and Experiences

You need to get the caliper removed and the caliper pin cleaned and greased. A 15 min job.. i've had it done once in the past.
The rear is sliding caliper i.e. one part of the caliper actually slides (over a sliding pin) causing the pads to engage with the rotor.. and if it ain't sliding freely you will have such issues.
while at it, get the pads cleaned, pistons inspected, pushed back a bit and put everything back.. ride and check.

Re: KTM Duke 390 - Ownership Reviews and Experiences

In addition to what fellow Bhpian mentioned, I'd recommend you to remove your rear caliper, give the caliper a thorough clean, inspect the brake pads for glazing or uneven wear, before greasing the pins, check if those pins are rusted. If they are rusted, glaze the pins with sand paper which smoothens uneven surface, removes rust and then grease them, that's one. Secondly, and IMPORTANTLY the brake lever is held by an allen bolt and a teeny weeny roller bearing inside, check if that bearing is okay, if it's okay, grease it thoroughly, if it's grabbing or the pins on the bearing are having play and grabby, replace the bearing, 40 bucks approx. I'd suggest you remove the rear brake lever clean the pivot and grease the pivot and bearings along with the above mentioned procedure, should be fixed.

If you haven't replaced your brake fluid in a long time, I'd recommend now would be a better time as everything is getting serviced.

Keep your observations posted.

Cheers!
VJ

Re: KTM Duke 390 - Ownership Reviews and Experiences

Thanks for your valuable inputs. Will definitely get the mentioned processes done real soon. And along with the same I will post the processes carried out to resolve the issue.

Re: KTM Duke 390 - Ownership Reviews and Experiences

Got back my Feb 2016 Duke 390 (30k kms) after a regular service where some minor annoyances were fixed and the service engineer mentioned that he saw some white smoke from the exhaust. I did notice some white smoke when I started the bike and revved it, but only for a second or so. Once I got back to my place I started looking all over the head to see any tell-tale signs of leakage and noticed that the airbox is cracked and there is some blow-by leakage. But the whole white smoke has got me worried. It could be the cool climate of Bangalore or I am probably in for an expensive repair. Anyways, the mechanic has asked me to keep an eye on the oil and coolant levels (both of which have been stable for a long time).

Any suggestions or inputs from here? I had noticed a few instances where the white smoke comes from around the bike, but not from the actual exhaust outlet (But they were on off instances, separated by several weeks and hundreds of KMs worth of riding.). I assumed it was the lube being flung on to the catalytic converter box. I'm surely getting the airbox changes, but is there any way to easily ascertain if its just water vapor? I am probably freaking out, but I take good care of my machines and wanna avoid any sort of long-term damage to the engine.

Re: KTM Duke 390 - Ownership Reviews and Experiences

If white smoke is only during starting then don't worry.
If white smoke is coming even after 10-15 minutes bike is started then there is problem. In that case need to diagnose to check what is going wrong.
Air filter box is crappy .. even mine os cracked but i am driving till the crack are not getting bigger.

Re: KTM Duke 390 - Ownership Reviews and Experiences

So, went out for a shirt ride at night with a friend. Around 130km in total and no coolant drop,, warning light or smoke. He was tailing me on the way back and all of a sudden he asked me to stop and says that my exhaust is red hot. I looked at the manifold region and it was fine, but looking into the exhaust pipe, it was clearly red hot. But the temps on the guage was normal and I really couldn't find anything wrong I Weere maintaining around 120 kmph and occasionally went above 130. So we decided to do the rest below 100 and finished up the ride and checked on the exhaust. It was fine, not red hot. Even the temps didn't go anywhere near over heating. I think it's just carbon deposit, as it a 3 year old bike and we were keeping a fast pace. What do you guys think though?

Re: KTM Duke 390 - Ownership Reviews and Experiences

White smoke during early morning start-ups are of two kinds, one is the vapor kind which you can clearly see is like steam, the moment they come out of the exhaust, they vanish in a few seconds, almost like a steam coming out of a hot kettle. This is called water vapor, which is normal during cold and early morning start. Now, the smoke that we shouldn't be seeing is the blue smoke or the oil smoke. This kind of smoke is something similar to a two stroke smoke, which gives out a distinctive oil burn smoke and the smoke doesn't go away easily, it takes a good while to go away. If you've ever followed those battered smokey two stroke auto rickshaws you'd know how long it takes for the smoke to disseminate into air. This smoke would mean we have a leaky rings, or valves or what not. When revved upon during early mornings, this white smoke should be of very minimum, if you feel your bike spitting out excessive white smoke, your bike can be having trouble.

Secondly, a cracked air filter box would mean the mixture getting leaner and can cause high engine temperature due to AFR going for a toss, even though the ECM corrects the fueling. The fact that your exhaust has gotten red hot can mean the engine is running extremely lean which is why it made the exhaust "red hot". Running this way can warp your head and worse seize the engine due to extreme heat. Get your AF box replaced and keep your observations posted.

Cheers!
VJ

Re: KTM Duke 390 - Ownership Reviews and Experiences

I suspected it to be water vapor, but the cracked airbox and blow by are the things that got me worried. The bike is already at the SVC and I'll report back after they have diagnosed it. I asked them to see if the coolant is leaking too, just to be sure.

Re: KTM Duke 390 - Ownership Reviews and Experiences

I had got the bike back on Saturday evening and they too were of the opinion that it was the broken airbox causing a lean mixture and that the smoke was probably the blow by. Decided to check the bike over the weekend and report. So, we went on a nice ride to Hogenakal waterfalls to see if the bike was doing good. The plan was to return back the moment the bike show any signs of issues. But it all went very well, no issues what so ever. Kept up with a Street Triple RS nicely, and no single instance of smoke or hot exhaust or any such thing. Fueling too was excellent (As excellent as these bikes are capable of). But will report back to the SVC in 15 days and check on the quality and quantity of oil as well as coolant.

Re: KTM Duke 390 - Ownership Reviews and Experiences

Great. Keep your observations posted.

Cheers!
VJ