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My 2014 KTM 390 Duke gets a cooling system overhaul after 30,000 km

26th April 2023, 17:38 by Rahul Nagaraj

Post service and stress testing for a week taking it to work in JVLR peak hour traffic, now it was holding up pretty well.

BHPian Dhruv Shetty recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

As the bike was nearing 30k, I had placed an order for the hoses, thermostat and other related parts more than a week before the appointment, knowing that it is a 2014 Duke 390 and some parts aren’t readily available. Once all the parts were received from KTM Goregaon, on Sunday I was off to Mira-Road for the service, left home at around 10:20 and reached Zenngine at 11:05 am, by the time I arrived they had just opened up and were doing some cleaning and the usual set up and in the meantime, hung my helmet in a safe place, let my bike cool off, had a chit chat with the guys and admiring all the interesting bikes. At 11:20 Tali rolled in for a long day of service, reconfirmed what needs to be done and Vignesh coordinated with another guy on what to do, and handed over the parts which I purchased. At one point during the service I decided to sit with the bike while it was getting worked on, the floor is pretty clean, after awhile Hussain bhai comes back from some errand and sees four people sitting around the bike and goes “Kitne log ek bike pe kam karenge” (How many people will sit and work on one bike). There were four of us including me and a new joiner.

Bike rolled in

Oil is pretty dark, been ripping a lot when I see a clear road

Old coolant out (Engine ice)

More dismantling, every service both the front and rear brake caliper’s get thoroughly cleaned and the pins get greased, Plus Floor is so clean that you can sit down and watch your bike being worked on.

Time for the old coolant pipes to come out, getting these hoses out was a pain, even the exhaust pipe had to be unbolted.

Old unit out

All the old hoses out and check how bad they were, turns out one hose was ready to burst anytime.

Can notice the damage in the hose

Fresh hoses assembled, there is a design change in the metal t-pipe. One of the hoses I got from the SVC was the wrong one, so it was sourced and got it on time. There has been a design change in the metal pipe.

Can see the design change

New unit assembled

Meet Ricky, the most senior technician who doesn’t bother to move even if a bike is being rolled in or if he is in someone’s way

Zain's (the owner) personal bike is a sweet Triumph Daytona which is used only for the track.

The water pump cover has been opened for the first time in 9 years, and all the necessary seals and o-rings were changed

Looking at the Duke without its radiator looks weird. The radiator was thoroughly cleaned.

During the assembly, one of the grommets holding the radiator broke off, so a new one was ordered and luckily it was available.

Can see Vignesh grinding off the old grommet as it was seized.

After all the PDI was performed, reset the service interval, and the bike was hooked to the Texa diagnostic tool to scan for any faults and cleared them.

Everything got wrapped at 8 pm, so basically it was a date with my bike and emptying my wallet. The business partner had come to check up on stuff and was shocked and reconfirmed that if just did a service or something else, he also has a 1st gen D390 and a 790. His D390 and my D390 are of the same registration series.

Post service and stress testing for a week taking it to work in JVLR peak hour traffic, now it was holding up pretty well, matter of fact even the fan was working better compared to before. Rode it in bumper-to-bumper traffic for about 45 mins and it held up well. So as usual I am impressed with the guys from Zenngine.

Final bill =10k

An update for any 2013/2014 390 owners who want to get their wiring harness changed, now KTM has stopped the production of 2013 and 2014 390 wiring harness production. Now only post-2015 manufactured bike wiring harnesses will be available, on top of that even the ECU will have to be changed along with the harness.

1km before 30k