[SunnyBoi]

So the whole saga with this bike began couple of years ago. Or sooner?

I've always wanted a Duke 390. I had a RD350 back in 2013 and sold it in anticipation of purchasing a Duke 390. Went to the KTM dealer and was ready to put down a deposit, not knowing then the bike would launch only by October 2013. However a sour experience at the KTM dealer meant this wouldn't bear fruit.

Come August 2021, This Duke 390 came up for sale through an old friend of mine who owned it since new in 2013. He was asking a very reasonable price for it which tempted me a LOT. However, my good friend was on the lookout for a nice bike and I let him get first dibs. As expected, he snapped up the bike. Ofcourse I was happy for him and I started looking out for known and unabused exampels of older Duke 390 for myself.

A week later, he dropped off the bike with me for some TLC. The bike did not come with handguards and was missing stickers on the tank. My friend wanted them both on.

The bike after its first wash



Right off the bat, I spotted a few problems.

Leaky valve cover gasket



Leaky rear shock absorber



Bike came with Michelin Pilot Street tyres but they were very old, nearing 5 years and there were some light cracks forming. There was a stupid legislation passed recently in our neck of the woods that banned imports of motorcycle tyres, leaving only horrible local tyres as options.

The brakes were very mediocre. This was a known issue with the 2013 dukes with the front master cylinder being the culprit. Having worked on another 2013 Duke 390 belonging to another friend, I knew the master cylinder had to be replaced with the unit from the latest batch of Dukes. I thought of deferring that purchase and see what I could manage with just a flush and bleed of brakes.

The old brake fluid. It was bad.



Brake feel improved a lot post flush and bleed. I decided to leave them as is and postpone replacing the front master cylinder.

New handguards are in!



So are the stickers. Glossy black and white parts got a polish and looked much better than before.



Earlier that year, I went to Tyre Professionals to get a slow leak on my car's tyre fixed. I strolled inside their warehouse and spotted these





I immediately called my friend, he came in the next day and got these tyres for the Duke.

[SunnyBoi]

Lets talk about the title to this thread, why crypto bike?

Come November 2021, crypto boom was in full swing. I came to know of another very well kept and low miles 2013 Duke 390 coming up for sale. I don't have any crypto coins, but I did have couple of Radeon graphics cards that were in high demand by the crypto miners. I did realise my gaming life had come to an end and they were better off funding my next hobby, rather rekindling a lost one.

So I got in touch with a miner, sold both these cards for literally multiple times of what they cost me few years prior. I'm all set to get my crypto bike! Alas, that deal wasn't meant to be. The asking price, what I felt was very high considering how cheap my friend's Duke was. Plus it needed new tyres for sure and few other bits and bobs, I knew it would soon become an expensive affair.

Back in 2013 was well, I sold my RD350 to fund a Duke 390. However life came along and the money was soon used for other things. Not this time though, I kept all the funds parked safe away.

Come August 1st week, another good friend with a 2013 Duke was hinting at selling his bike, but did not spell it out properly. I was thinking of calling him soon and asking for it. I kept putting off the phone call. Few days later, I finally decide to call him at 8pm to talk about the bike. By 7pm, I get a call from my other friend. He told me he's barely using the bike and wants me to have it so it can be utilized well. It turns out the pillion seat is uncomfortable for his wife and he will get something else that is more comfy for her.

I did not need convincing - I took the train and visited my friend's place the following week. He did tell me the bike wouldn't start and he had recently replaced the battery with a new unit in May. This got me thinking as to what the culprit could be. I pushed him more, he checked again and told me the dash lights up fine but all he hears is a click when he tries to start the bike. Good news, it might just be the battery. I made sure to take my Ctek charger with me.

I visted his place and the first thing I did was swap the battery with one from my Apache. I was relieved when the duke started up! Phew!

So we went upstairs, conntected the duke's battery to the ctek. 6 hours later, the battery was fully charged.

The duke is home, next to my big bore Apache.



First impressions - the brakes simply dont work.This is when I made the call to change the front brake master cylinder, something that I had put off last time. Unfortunately though, two KTM dealers around me did not have it in stock. The next best thing would be to give the brake fluid a good flush and bleed. As luck would have it, I only had ~100ml of brake fluid with me. I did manage to bleed and flush the front using just 50ml and the result wan instantaneous with a better brake feel that a lever that did not feel like using drum brakes. However the remaining 50ml was not enough to flush out the rear brakes and the fluid in the rear was HORRIBLE - it resembled black coffee and I am not exaggerating.

Next, the chain was bone dry with all links being rusted. Picked up a can of Motul chain lube and gave the chain a good spray. Gave the chain another soaking the following day to make sure it was lubed well.

With the brakes working somewhat, I rode out back to my home town. Stopped at a lake for some pictures





I saw another problem once I reached home. Water in the meter. Sigh.



Fast forward to Dec 2023. This is how the bike looks as of today



This will be a long thread where I dismantle nearly all of the bike and build it back up replacing a TON of parts from a bike I assumed was perfect, with me learning a lot about KTMs as I go. I've come to love this duke in this journey, so much I recently bought a Duke 200 to keep the 390 company!

Stay tuned!

[GTO]

Thread moved from the Assembly Line to the Motorcycle section. Thanks for sharing!

Going to our homepage later this week

[SunnyBoi]

I want to first thank a few helpful dudes out on the internets who have made my life easier providing super useful information on Duke 390s

deville_56 and his awesome ownership thread on TAI forums : https://www.theautomotiveindia.com/f...er-2014.18860/

Jeet Bhaskar's Youtube channel : https://www.youtube.com/@JeetBhaskar/

Many folks at KTMDuke390 Forums : 1jzsupra, Mirius, Syer, CDN Duke and many more

Right, back to August 2022 and continuing with the updates.

The first order of business was a good wash! It rained well on the way so the bike did get fairly dirty. There was a lot of muck on the rear alloy from the excess chain lube so that needed to be cleaned off as well.





Took the bike out for a spin







After a thorough cleanup, I noticed there was a lot of oil around the outer edges of the clutch and magnet covers as well as lot of oil on the belly pan. I suspected few oil leaks.


Next, I took out the pads of both front and rear calipers, gave them a good inspect and clean. The pads were fairly new with tons of life left. I did hear that the new 390 Adventure came with Brembo sintered metal brake pads and I did have that in my list of upgrades.


Both calipers got a general helping of copper grease





One of my pet peeves is hatred towards rusty bolts. Almost every bolt on the bike was rusted so they will be replaced with better ones.


no. Just no





New Stainless Steel M6x35 bolts for both sides. Much better!





Made a trip to the local KTM dealer and bought these parts : Front and rear brake master cylinders, slipper clutch, Fuel, oil filters with new orings and new clutch and magnet cover gaskets. Not pictured were new valve cover gaskets.





Starting off with front brakes - The fluid had already turned cloudy, this is with just 2 days and one ride! I feel much better at deciding to replace the whole MC by now.





Replaced the Master cylinder with the new unit. Fresh fluid throughout the front circuit now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVEZMyJZKWI

Next up was replacing the rear brake MC





So the new fluid mixed with the old and the entire thing still resembled black coffee

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1xwFQ3P-R4

While I am very good and bleeding brakes, this puzzled me till no end. I passed nearly 100ml of fluid through reverse bleeding and yet I had no pressure whatsoever. My last refuge was a trick local mechanics here do - pump and hold the pedal while quickly loosening then tightening the MC banjo bolt. I did that with nothing to lose and it helped! There was finally a tiny amount of pressure though the system now. I ditched the reverse bleed process and decided to pass fluid through the old fashioned way. About 50ml in, a HUGE amount of air just came out of the caliper bleed nipple and I was so relieved! Kept doing same till I got no more bubbles.


I ended up using only about 60ml for the front and the remainder 440ml went into bleeding rear brakes. Oh well they're sharper than they were ever before and I will take that as a win. I had an accident where the syringe came off and I ended up spraying brake fluid everywhere. a cleanup was in order and that's why water and soap all around.





I then took off the belly pan and cleaned the underside thoroughly to make sure I could find out any new oil leaks post replacing gaskets.



I spoke with my local mechanic to swap out the valve cover gaskets, slipper clutch and clutch, magnet gaskets.


The spark plug hole had oil in it. I did not expect this but it should get solved with all new gaskets. Replaced the Plug with a NGK LKAR8AI-9





The cams and everything else under the valve cover looked good. The red oil looked like Motul 7100. I should have gotten the valve clearances checked but I forgot about it.





Slipper clutch went in along with new gaskets.





The mechanic pointed out one of the clamps holding the exhaust had broken off and there was a strange gash/hole with exhaust leaking out.





The exhaust was taken out and welded up. Turns out one of the rubber bushes on the bottom mount disintegrated, that caused the exhaust to be tilted and broke off one of the clamp. No explanation for the hole though. The KTM dealer did not have new rubber bushes but he managed to put in a rubber bush of similar dimensions for now till I get the original part.


I then poured in 1.5L of Motul 300V 15W50 and headed home.


Next day, I made up a ghetto OBD2 adaptor





I check on fault codes and there was one staring at me - P0130 indicating a faulty O2 sensor. I cleared it but it soon reappeared. I did fire up realtime stats on torque and I could see the O2 voltage cycling. Was the O2 sensor really gone bad?


I decided to change it anyway. However, the KTM service did not have it in stock. I was wondering if any Bajaj bike had it as well.


So I got checking. The O2 sensor's part number is JG511010





Turns out the Bajaj Dominar 400 had the same part number for its O2 sensor.


https://www.99rpm.com/bajaj/silencer-dominar-400.html


I headed to the main Bajaj dealer and he had it in stock.





The Bosch part number for both old and new O2 sensors are exactly the same. I also got the rubber bushes for the exhaust which it turns out is the same as Pulsar RS200's exhaust bushes.


Changed the O2 sensor. Plugged it back. Fired up torque, cleared the code and started the bike. The code popped back again - at this point, I've run out of ideas. I then installed OBDlink on my phone. Strangely this one did not report any faults. Right now I've left this as it is.


I filled up the bike with some 95 octane gas - coupled with new oil and slipper clutch, the bike has become lot smoother and more of a joy to ride!

[SunnyBoi]

Next on the list of fixes was the speedometer. The Set button broke off soon and I put a patch of duct tape on both buttons to ensure no water goes in. I did want to take apart the speedo, inspect what went wrong and make amends.


I took off the meter from the bike, took off 3 screws holding the trim piece and I was greeted to this sight





So someone used double sided tape. The first owner must have complained of rattles and this was their fix.


Turning the meter around I saw some distressing signs. This looked like Fevibond. Note from the future me: this is par for the course for KTMs and every speedo has these.





Turns out they used Fevibond to join the two ends of the o-ring string that made up the gasket. I have no idea why it even spilled out. No wonder there were many issues with speedos of earlier dukes failing so often. I'm surprised mine is still functional after all this time





Fortunately I have a roll of new 2mm o-ring string to make up a new gasket.


It was measured to length





Both ends joined together with CA glue as it should have been. The old perished seal is next to the new one





Inside of the lens had etch marks from the condensate settling on the lens. Both the inside and outside of the lens was polished, all scratches from the outside were removed.





I kept the speedo open for a day to make sure all the water inside had evaporated. In hindsight, I should have added a small packet of silica gel to ensure the inside was completely free of moisture. The new o-ring was lubricated with silicone to give it a better chance of survival.



Next day, the meter was put together. Yopu can see a part of the "set" button that came off the meter shell next to my keyboard



While the speedo was out, I had problems with the headlight. The low beam was not working when I got the bike. Going by occam's razor, I bought a new headlight bulb and replaced the old part. I did notice the old bulb's low beam filament was intact but I did not think much of it as the low beam worked with new bulb.


Few days later, the low beam wouldn't work. It did again intermittently and I suspected something else was bad. There was a 4 pin connector connecting the headlight plug to the harness, two pins in it looked corroded/full of something weird. I did not have a can of electric contact cleaner, I then depinned each of the 4+4 pins, cleaned them with IPA and a brush then put them back. This seems to have fixed the issue for now.

The speedo goes back in! Love the clear display now.

[doga]

Wonderful thread, tempted to create my own but then I won't be called lazy would I, so another time! Question- where did you source the clutch and alternator cover socket bolts? Are these A2or A4? I am looking for A4 bolts-even hex would do- for my duke but unable to source in the exact lengths required.

[SunnyBoi]

Originally Posted by doga

Question- where did you source the clutch and alternator cover socket bolts? Are these A2or A4?

These are A2 bolts and sourced from my local hardware shop. A2 bolts themselves are overkill for this application so I don't mind having these.

These are not even their final form, all of these bolts will get changed again!

[ebonho]

Originally Posted by doga

Wonderful thread, tempted to create my own but then I won't be called lazy would I, so another time! Question- where did you source the clutch and alternator cover socket bolts? Are these A2or A4? I am looking for A4 bolts-even hex would do- for my duke but unable to source in the exact lengths required.

When I went recently to Wagholi KTM the technician on his own replaced my oil filter cover bolts with these (photo attached on the big Duke 390 thread). He was talking about old ones not being able to be torqued adequately after getting old, without their threads getting cut. Pretty certain the same can be used for the clutch and alternator case bolts too?

I'm pretty certain over the past 10 years these old SVCs are now a storehouse of fixes and solutions and parts bin inter-compatibility within the Bajaj family of bikes they take care of, which never gets formally documented or informed to the company many a times or makes it to formal product or part re-design and/or service manuals. Remaining largely technician and SVC centered and based.

As another example. The same technician had added (or replaced?) some resistor that solved the repeat High Coolant Temperature warning that suddenly started popping up on Gen 1 bikes. Don't know if you guys have heard of this.

Cheers, Doc

[anilp]

Originally Posted by SunnyBoi

With the brakes working somewhat, I rode out back to my home town.

Try changing the brake pads to the new sintered brake pads as well when you change the master cylinder. That should hopefully resolve these issues. My 2013 Duke had the same issues that got sorted with these changes.

Congrats on getting your paws on this absolute hooligan

Ride safe!

[vignesh.cv]

Lovely thread Sunny, your attention to detail and sorting out things one by one is so satisfying to read up. Congrats and wishing you many happy miles riding this hooligan of a bike !!

[Dhruv Shetty]

Originally Posted by SunnyBoi

I want to first thank a few helpful dudes out on the internets who have made my life easier providing super useful information on Duke 390s

deville_56 and his awesome ownership thread on TAI forums : [url]https://www.theautomotiveindia.com/forums/threads/powerpig-ktm-


I filled up the bike with some 95 octane gas - coupled with new oil and slipper clutch, the bike has become lot smoother and more of a joy to ride!

Hey,

Congratulations on the 390 and wish you many more love/hate kilometers , speaking from experience, as my 390 is used example with 2 previous owners.

When i first got mine, the instrument cluster had the same issue, later on after a year i got the front shell replaced, after this the condensation reduced by a good margin.

Same here i have replaced both the front and rear MC kit, the rear one was replaced within 3 months of ownership and the front in 2021. There is a massive difference in brake feel with the MC kit + Sintered brake pads + good brake fluid.

I had the option to switch to slipper clutch, but stuck with the standard clutch, i love the feeling of the OG clutch setup . High octane fuel makes a big difference in riding.

Word of advise, stay away from Liqui Moly engine flush as it can damage the engine and seeing the internals of your 390, it looks clean and the previous owner did timely services. Just wanted to know how many KMs the bike has run?

Cheers,
Dhruv Shetty.

[Tuisha110HP]

I have the exact same year Duke 390 with the same color and I too did buy it pre-owned. Now after 4 years of ownership, still in dilemma which bike to replace it. There are no options unless you change the category and use case of the bike. Cheers!

[thtechnician]

Originally Posted by SunnyBoi

Inside of the lens had etch marks from the condensate settling on the lens. Both the inside and outside of the lens was polished, all scratches from the outside were removed.

Looks great, what did you use to polish it?

[VijayAnand1]

Sunny, very well articulated and chronographed. You deserve a beer! Off the bat, 2013 models were mostly a hit and miss to say the least, right from rear shock failures, water-ingress inside speedo bezel, and indicators too (later switched to black bezelled) flashers to prevent water ingress, leaky coolant temp sensor and quick to go kaput fuel pump, not to mention the fork oil seals. Oh, and those bolts, they're simply made of cheese.

Neat homework to say the least. With respect to brakes, over and above flushing, remove your caliper and thoroughly remove/clean the pistons, O-rings. Removing the brake line and cleaning it with compressed air helps remove the adsorbent debris along the lines. Same goes for the front and rear master cylinder -- thorough dismantle and cleaning is key. Master cylinder rebuild kits are available and they're extremely helpful in bringing back old brake feel/feedback. Strongly recommend you do a major kit replacement fore and aft, with DOT 4 brake fluid and sintered pad and get the adjustable lever of the current gen (which is a direct swap) and the braking is just one-finger dab.

Secondly, as is customary perforce replacing your in-line fuel pump filter and fuel-pump-felt-pad-filter is mandatory, irrespective of the ownership status quo. Strongly recommend also to replace the water pump seals and the pump rotor as a preventative measure which would do much more good in the long term and overall experience chugging along.

Copper grease is good, but using it in extremely minimal quantity is key. It should be noted that copper grease should scantily used on the back on the brake pad and not applied on the piston. Copper grease hardens overtime, eventually accumulating muck and it's a pain in the posterior to simple clean those balls of bane that get caked. Been there done that, so take it easy on copper grease.

Replace your rear shocker with that of AS200/NS200 (older batch 2017-2020) and forget about any future repercussions with respect to shock oil leak. The close proximity of the exhaust resonator to the shocker adds to the insult and with no protection whatsoever on the old Dukes shock absorber, it was only about time things go north. Plus, the AS/NS200 shocks cost about three grands vis-a-vis seven grand for the KTM.

Glad to see another hooligan getting all the TLC she deserves.

Enjoy the ride and keep it observations posted.

Cheers!
VJ

[SunnyBoi]

Originally Posted by anilp

Try changing the brake pads to the new sintered brake pads as well when you change the master cylinder. That should hopefully resolve these issues. My 2013 Duke had the same issues that got sorted with these changes.

Originally Posted by Dhruv Shetty

Same here i have replaced both the front and rear MC kit, the rear one was replaced within 3 months of ownership and the front in 2021. There is a massive difference in brake feel with the MC kit + Sintered brake pads + good brake fluid.

I ended up getting something better hehe, will share the updates soon. I have over a year's work backlog to post here first

Originally Posted by Dhruv Shetty

I had the option to switch to slipper clutch, but stuck with the standard clutch, i love the feeling of the OG clutch setup . High octane fuel makes a big difference in riding.

Word of advise, stay away from Liqui Moly engine flush as it can damage the engine and seeing the internals of your 390, it looks clean and the previous owner did timely services. Just wanted to know how many KMs the bike has run?

I forgot to mention, I also changed the clutch cable to a new one when I worked on the bike from the first post. It helped a bit, however the heavy clutch was unbearable for me. I went for the slipper clutch purely to make it lighter

Bike had run about 33400KMs when I got it, currently it sits around 41K KMs

Originally Posted by thtechnician

Looks great, what did you use to polish it?

Any generic polish should work, plastic is easy to polish anyway

Originally Posted by VijayAnand1

Neat homework to say the least. With respect to brakes, over and above flushing, remove your caliper and thoroughly remove/clean the pistons, O-rings. Removing the brake line and cleaning it with compressed air helps remove the adsorbent debris along the lines. Same goes for the front and rear master cylinder -- thorough dismantle and cleaning is key. Master cylinder rebuild kits are available and they're extremely helpful in bringing back old brake feel/feedback. Strongly recommend you do a major kit replacement fore and aft, with DOT 4 brake fluid and sintered pad and get the adjustable lever of the current gen (which is a direct swap) and the braking is just one-finger dab.

Thank you Vijay for your observations. The duke has received better brake pads and all, I know my ways around brake systems very well, my Apache commuter runs a 2022 Duke 390 MC, P220 SS braided hose, 4 pot caliper from a Yamaha R1 with EBC HH pads and RTR petal discs



MY RX runs the same MC-hose-caliper-pad combo but with a 320mm rotor from a 2017 D390



I'm proud to say I have made these mods at home by myself without any mechanic's help.

Originally Posted by VijayAnand1

Secondly, as is customary perforce replacing your in-line fuel pump filter and fuel-pump-felt-pad-filter is mandatory, irrespective of the ownership status quo. Strongly recommend also to replace the water pump seals and the pump rotor as a preventative measure which would do much more good in the long term and overall experience chugging along.

Fuel pump was replaced with a new unit just 200KMs before it was sold to my friend from the first owner. So I'm good on that. I'm aware of the water pump seals failing, I haven't touched the water pump seals because I haven't had any issue yet. I'll consider changing it as a preventive measure soon.

Originally Posted by VijayAnand1

Replace your rear shocker with that of AS200/NS200 (older batch 2017-2020) and forget about any future repercussions with respect to shock oil leak. The close proximity of the exhaust resonator to the shocker adds to the insult and with no protection whatsoever on the old Dukes shock absorber, it was only about time things go north. Plus, the AS/NS200 shocks cost about three grands vis-a-vis seven grand for the KTM.

Rear shocker was changed to a RC390 unit with the flap a month after my friend purchased it. you can see it in the first pic of the second post where I bring it home.

Continuing with the updates!

I want to ideally strip down the whole bike, clean everything, restore whatever that can be restored otherwise paint/replace then ceramic coat everything so maintaining it would be easy.


First off, I need the bike to be stable and not on the side stand all the time. Rummaged around what I had, couple of M10 bolts, M12 nuts and jack stands came in handy




This is how the belly pan looked when it was taken out. It had taken a bad hit, the bolts holding the belly pan were badly mangled and so had to take off the bracket itself to release the belly pan



Belly pan gets a good clean



Mangled bolts. Even the clamp was badly bent



Belly pant was the first to receive some ceramic coat.



Engine underside and Clutch cover of the engine was coated as well. I later noticed I did not clean a portion under the water pump, this will be fixed soon.



Rear shock absorber, swingarm and clutch side of the engine were next. They were given a deep clean first





Plastic pieces now look real nice, especially the chain cover - it's finally back to black.




Magnet cover, swingarm, rear suspension gets coated




All the parts back together





It rained the next evening. The ceramic coat is working as expected with lovely beads all around





Getting a correct replacement for the shock protector bolt thingy was tricky. Ended up using M6x10 CSK bolts with an anodised aluminium washer. The original bolt is a M6x8 and my steel guy did not have anything smaller than 10mm. The special washer was sanded and given a coat of zinc again since it had already rusted out. The bolt holding the rear shock was also changed to a SS unit with a SS nylock nut on the other side





Replaced the clutch lever with an adjustable unit as well. The pivot bolt hold on the old lever had become oval and had lot of slop in it.





Next was the exhaust.

Originally Posted by SunnyBoi

Turns out one of the rubber bushes on the bottom mount disintegrated, that caused the exhaust to be tilted and broke off one of the clamp.
...

I also got the rubber bushes for the exhaust which it turns out is the same as Pulsar RS200's exhaust bushes.

I did get the new bushes and it was the reason why the exhaust came off so I could swap it out. The temporary bush put in its place had already started melting





End can got few coats of black hi temp paint. The pipe got a very thorough clean (no abrasives were used) and it revealed some shiny metal behind it.





Took the pipe to the next level with some more polishing and ending with a pass with Mothers metal polish for the mirror finish







Rear side of the engine usually blocked by the exhaust looked like it needed TLC



...and TLC it did get!



With the exhaust out, I could see the muck hidden behind it on the engine



Everything cleaned up. The coolant hose was deep cleaned too



Next up was the radiator guard



Just cleaning this back to new took me forever. I later learnt this part barely cost 100-150rs, it would have been wiser to replace it instead of speding so much effort cleaning it



Exhaust heatsheild had very visible marks



Now metal scratches are very difficult to remove. This was the best I could do in addition to make the rest look brighter



Tail section came off next with grab handles and was promptly cleaned



Entire rear end and tail got the ceramic treatment



Looks like I'm hitting the picture count limit. Will continue with the next post