[SunnyBoi]

Disappointed by the outcome, I just took a week off from working from the bike again. I took this time to formulate a better way to tackle this than my previous attempt.


Soon, the tank came off as before, ready for the valve cover to come off next.





0.03mm feeler guage going through. No wonder it sounded so bad




At this point I started realised how bad I had effed up. Till this moment I don't know how it got so bad. Why did I get the clearances so wrong and grind down the shims so much.


For Round 2, I was better prepared. I borrowed a micrometer and a good vernier caliper from a good friend. I took out the old shims and labelled them. As usual, the KTM Service center did not have the shims I wanted, closest I could find were 2x 2.56 and 2x 2.72mm ones. The shims in the micrometer box are the smaller ones for a Duke 200. At this point, I had 5 old shims - the 4 that came out of the bike and one spare shim that started off as a 2.52 from the previous post.





While grinding shims, I went overboard with one shim, I had to hurry out and get another spare. Unfortunately it was a holiday for the KTM service center but my mechanic came in clutch - he ha d a new 2.50mm shim with him. Phew!





So these are the initial and final numbers.





For the shims, I pasted a sheet of paper to the table, marked them into sections and kept all the shims on their spot, made sure I recorded every detail I could, to prevent any mix up like last time





The shim I went overboard was the 2.72 shim, I was targeting 2.43 but ground too much and it became to thin. I had mounted all 4 shims with intakes 2.43 and 2.40. They seemed fine when Iw as checking clearances with just the camshaft held on them but the clearances went up, by 0.02mm once I fixed and torqued up the cam bridge. This is when I got the 2.5 shim, ground it down to 2.44 then changed the shims around to their final numbers.


With all these shims in place, Ive realised the clearances went up by 0.02mm on all 4 cams once I had torqued up the cam bridge. I had targeted 0.10mm for the intake cams and 0.15 for the exhaust so they can be at the beginning of spec, however they're right now at the middle. But I now have the correct shim sizes for all 4 valves and will see if I can get 0.02mm larger shims for all 4 valves and keep them handy.


Soon enough, the engine was put together, for the final time





The clutch arm had a lot of wear in it, I did not notice this at all until I had removed it and checked it myself

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H8mgXLUOqs

So, I got the clutch arm from the newest Duke 390. The pivot point is further outward and this should make the clutch lighter.





and it did! the clutch now, combined with the slipper clutch unit is so light, I can easily actuate it with one finger

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHfM7LDUcR4

Got some orange cable ties from KTM





Black cable times I used when wrapping the loom are now replaced with orange ones





The tank are around the fuel filler cap had a lot of mud. I took the 2 allen bolts holding it off, cleaned everything around it. Replaced rusty units with spanking new stainless steel units.





Even the ECU got a cleanup and new hardware





Fixed the radiator back, filled up the coolant. Rinse and Repeat. Started the bike and it sounded MILES better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy5zYAfBXBk

It's a bit rattly because it now has looser valves but still way better than before. Plus the intake cam is no longer retarded!


After taking a ride, I can definitely tell the power is up from idle all the way to the top! Not sure if its the timing being correct or the new oil but it is a most welcome change. Plus I'm happy to have put this saga regarding valve clearances behind me for now!

Originally Posted by SunnyBoi

I drained the old oil, I ended up with slightly over 1.8 liters! Whoa! Few weeks back, I had topped up the Motul 300V with about 150-200ml of Motul 7100. Looks like my engine never lost any oil, it was all there! The sight glass always showed oil at minimum level though.

For the Engine Oil, I had purchased a 1.5L can of Motul 7100. My mechanic gave me about 350ml of Motul 7100 leftover from someone who changed their oil - bought a 1.5L can and used up only 1150ml. I marked 200ml on the bottle and added it up. This barely brought the oil level on the sight glass to minimum? Added 100ml more, it came up to middle. Added 50 more, essentially dunking all the contents now its a tiny bit below maximum. I verified this by keeping the bike level on jackstands, letting it idle for 5 minutes, turning off the bike and then checking the level. I'm not sure why the correct level isnt being reported, maybe its got to do with the oil pump being clogged. I'll take off both covers and oil pumps during the next service and clean them, hopefully that should fix the issue.

Originally Posted by SunnyBoi

There was some slack in the timing chain and the intake cam looked to be on point without the slack.


https://www.Youtube.com/watch?v=X1gi1kOhEbY

The old timing when taken off did not show any kind of damage or wear, except for minor marks where the chain touched the sprocket teeth. However, there was much less slack with the new chain than what was in the above video. Perhaps changing the chain wasn't a waste of time and money after all.

Originally Posted by b16h22

iirc, KTM has changed the shim shape in the later models and sits different in the shim seat compared to an old 2013 shim. I remember reading this on the D390 international forum. Cannot confirm though. And I'm not sure if grinding the shims is the right way to do things. Shims are surface hardened from what I've heard and I wouldn't risk premature wear and possible early failure of the shims. Not to mention the fact that the surface might not be level enough. Take your time with this and order the right shims from KTM or get a complete shim kit from a reputed maker.

EDIT: found the thread - https://www.ktmduke390forum.com/thre...e-shims.45726/

Originally Posted by man_of_steel

Good DIY, but please get the correct shim from KTM even though it means ordering it and waiting for a bit.

These updates are from early this year and the bike is back to perfect running shape since. I still havent ordered the right shims though, partly because the KTM folks themselves arent very enthusiastic about taking orders and I honestly havent seen anything getting worse from when the valve clearances being done to till now. Perhaps I will order these shims next time I visit KTM and finish these off once and for all.

The shims arent hardened, you can see these wear marks on the factory shim from the valves touching the shim

[b16h22]

Originally Posted by SunnyBoi

The shims arent hardened, you can see these wear marks on the factory shim from the valves touching the shim

Attachment 2546922

Good to know the clearances are back to spec. The wear marks are not a sign of lack of surface hardening btw, they are normal wear pattern on old shims. The wear on them will be probably much worse if they were not surface hardened .

[SunnyBoi]

Right now the only parts that looked bad were the chassis. The color had faded away in lot of sections





They were treated with some polish





This was May 2023 so might as well pose with mayflowers





My front wheel had some slightly significant lip bends. I was planning to change the wheels to the newer 2023 RC390 ones, this way I can get lighter wheels + bigger 320mm rotors. In the meanwhile, my mechanic suggested I get the alloy repaired. Why not? you'll change them anyway. So he did get them fixed - that left paint damage along the rims



To the rescue comes in the shape of a Bisleri Bottle



Wheels touched up



Small photoshoot after the wheels touched up









Another trip to Bangalore, another choice to pose against a Big Banyan Tree



While in Bangalore, I met a good friend with a 2012 Duke 200. I had a feeling I'll be adding this bike to my fleet sometime around the end of this year.



The pass button on my 390 was malfunctioning. Turns out the root cause was me - I installed the spring upside down, the switch never worked right!



While I was there, took out the right cluster, separated out the purple wire to its own connector.



De-pinned the wire coming out of the handlebar switch, soldered a wire with the opposing connector



Put it back, looks all worriginal.



Wondering why? The 390 has this irritating feature where headlights turn off with the kill switch, or they die whenever the bike dies. I've swapped out the standard 60/55W halogen for a 6W LED that sips power so I've wired the headlights directly to the ignition and they work with the bike off and key on. I thought about adding a relay but the electrical load is so low, 6W for headlights plus 1W each for pilot and tail lamps? not enough load to warrant a relay.

Another trip to Betta with couple of classics. Funny how my bike was more powerful than either of the cars lol





I've been having this funny issue of bike cutting off at low revs and random misfires. My mechanic suggested I change the Spark Plug cap. So I bought one, along with couple other small knick knacks, including a full pack of seat dampers - way more than I need to also account for the 200 in the future. New coolant cap because why not? its just 28 or 30rs. Dominar footrests because I was never really happy with the 390 Adventure ones.



Out goes Adventure footpegs, hello Dominar. They re similar to the standard duke 390 footpegs just with a more plush rubber pad.



Plug was healthy



Turns out the culprit was the plug cable, the copper on it had kind of disintegrated. Trimmed the cable back about half inch and put in the new plug cap, problem solved.



New seat dampers. The RE chain pads work very very well.

[SunnyBoi]

From June, I got back into a regular 9-6 job back in Bangalore. This meant the Duke was back in my hometown and was unused for quite a while. The one time I was back in town - nearly 2 months after the previous update, the battery was dead.

The CTEK came to the rescue again



Amazon came in clutch with some good offers. Picked up lots of Motul 7100 for 630rs a liter. This is foreshadowing the impending arrival of the next bike in the garage



Soon my Workhorse aka Apache 193 started giving troubles. It's all my fault - I haven't taken care of her nearly as well as the Duke. This meant I retired the Workhorse for a while and started using the Duke everyday. 50KMs a day, 800rs of XP95 every 3 days burns a HUUUGE hole in my pocket. sigh.



The duke also took up highway duties and stopped using the Cedia altogether for now.











Upgraded my tool kit with a 5-25nm torque wrench



Celebrating Pride with the Duke



The duke served me about 1.5 months as an everyday bike. The workhorse was rebuilt - fresh top end and what not, however it just felt boring to ride after spending so long with the 390. The foot-forward seating position of the Apache just felt...wrong and something I couldn't get used to.

There was also the other duke looming about. So finally took a decision - called my friend up for the duke 200, in under 2 hours, he quoted a price, I wholeheartedly agreed and the bike was in my possession.



I did have to take out the battery from my Duke 390 to get the 200 started. This was on 29-November. Its 23-Dec and I still haven't put the battery back on the 390 sigh. I'll get the 390 running soon and cycle between the 200 and 390 for daily duties.

Originally Posted by v4run

After all the work has been completed on the bike can you show us how much it cost for everything you have done and the time it took to do it?

Here's a screenshot of all costs involved with the Duke since I've bought it. I havent added the cost of insurance and PUC for this year

[Vignesh_N/A]

Originally Posted by b16h22

Good to know the clearances are back to spec. The wear marks are not a sign of lack of surface hardening btw, they are normal wear pattern on old shims. The wear on them will be probably much worse if they were not surface hardened .

While I agree with the need for the surface hardness for this application, it is not easy to do surface hardening for such small dimensions. It would be simply be through hardened. Or as an alternative, it would be simpler to use a material with higher surface hardness.


@Sunnyboi Do you the have diameter for the factory shims? Did you try outside KTM from Autoparts store ?

[SunnyBoi]

Originally Posted by Vignesh_N/A

@Sunnyboi Do you the have diameter for the factory shims? Did you try outside KTM from Autoparts store ?

From what I remember, they were 10mm diameter shims. One of the KTM aftermarket workshops had a generic box of shims but none of what they had suited the thicknesses I wanted so forewent purchasing from them.

[VijayAnand1]

Guess with those ADV footpegs removed, I'm hoping you've swapped those with the pillion footrest. Those wide and flat ones should help with the added comfort for pillion.

Cheers !
VJ

[SunnyBoi]

Originally Posted by VijayAnand1

Guess with those ADV footpegs removed, I'm hoping you've swapped those with the pillion footrest. Those wide and flat ones should help with the added comfort for pillion.

I haven't, to be honest this thought never came into my head. Then again I'll probably never have a pillion on the bike and the existing footrest will look cleaner

[anilp]

Man, every time I come back to this thread, there's always a new learning. Kudos and thank you for all your hard work on this beauty

BTW, is your issue of the speedometer going to zero intermittently, solved?

If not, do give a shot at checking the condition of your ignition coils (stator coils?). They have a habit of dying one coil at a time till it all suddenly conks out and the bike goes into rigor mortis! I had a similar issue on my 2013 Duke which I kept ignoring till the ignition coils suddenly went kaput. Issue went away only after replacement of the coils.

[SunnyBoi]

Oops, missed your post!

Originally Posted by anilp

BTW, is your issue of the speedometer going to zero intermittently, solved?

If not, do give a shot at checking the condition of your ignition coils (stator coils?). They have a habit of dying one coil at a time till it all suddenly conks out and the bike goes into rigor mortis! I had a similar issue on my 2013 Duke which I kept ignoring till the ignition coils suddenly went kaput. Issue went away only after replacement of the coils.

Not yet. I have couple more electrical gremlins on the bike now. I'll probably try a new battery first, fix the wiring issues then look at a stator change.

Well. Ever since the Duke 200 arrived, the 390 has gone into hibernation.

Originally Posted by SunnyBoi

I did have to take out the battery from my Duke 390 to get the 200 started. This was on 29-November. Its 23-Dec and I still haven't put the battery back on the 390 sigh. I'll get the 390 running soon and cycle between the 200 and 390 for daily duties.

I did not put the battery back till Feb end! Even then, bike got used for a day then went into storage again. Sigh.

Finally decided to get the bike back on the road this week. All it needed was to charge the battery and it started right up.

Few pictures taken this week -










There was one last experiment I wanted to do with the 390, that was cleaning the fuel injector. I then learnt a new injector is Rs 1600 - that's cheap! Considering it would cost me around a 1000 rupees or more to get it professionally cleaned, this is a much better proposition. But as my laziness goes, Ive had the injector for 7 months now and too lazy to swap it just yet. Will do it the coming week.

I've also had an "Excessive Coolant Temperature" warning popup after the bike was in a sustained bumper to bumper traffic. The warning popped up after I had switched off at a signal, turned the kill switch off, this error came up with temp guage reading at 11 bars. The warning went off few seconds after starting the bike, temp guage read 9 bars.

This got me thinking, maybe I need to put in a bigger radiator. I'm now contemplating putting a MY23 RC390 radiator or 390 adventure radiator - both with dual factory fans. This will cost me a pretty penny but it also has a side advantage - I can use my existing 390 radiator on the 200 and that too needs a boost in cooling. Heck if its effective, might as well use a similar radiator on the 200 too.

The valves are starting toi get noisy again, time to swap out my ground shims with a size higher ones from KTM. Will place an order for the new shims and carry out the service when they arrive.

[anilp]

Originally Posted by SunnyBoi

I've also had an "Excessive Coolant Temperature" warning popup after the bike was in a sustained bumper to bumper traffic. The warning popped up after I had switched off at a signal, turned the kill switch off, this error came up with temp guage reading at 11 bars. The warning went off few seconds after starting the bike, temp guage read 9 bars.

This got me thinking, maybe I need to put in a bigger radiator. I'm now contemplating putting a MY23 RC390 radiator or 390 adventure radiator - both with dual factory fans.

Save yourself some money and just keep the engine on in traffic stops. I don't know why, but sudden switching off just causes our first gen 390s to heat up. But if you just keep it at idle there's no sudden surge in temperature.

PS: I'm sure you've checked the fan operation already, hence not going into that.

[SunnyBoi]

Originally Posted by anilp

Save yourself some money and just keep the engine on in traffic stops. I don't know why, but sudden switching off just causes our first gen 390s to heat up. But if you just keep it at idle there's no sudden surge in temperature.

Stopping the engine stops coolant flow. The existing coolant will continue to absorb leftover hear from the cylinder causing its temperature to rise.

Ive mulled adding a separate radiator switch so I can keep the fan running with bike off, however that will only cool the coolant in the radiator. If the fan runs for a while and the coolant in radiator gets too low, the engine will get thermally shocked when cold coolant enters the engine causing a seizure. Hence opted out of it.

Originally Posted by anilp

PS: I'm sure you've checked the fan operation already, hence not going into that.

Yup, fan was changed couple of years back by the first owner. The fan works well and I'll be adding couple of LED indicators near the dash that will light up when fan starts spinning

[ebonho]

Originally Posted by SunnyBoi

Ive mulled adding a separate radiator switch so I can keep the fan running with bike off, however that will only cool the coolant in the radiator. If the fan runs for a while and the coolant in radiator gets too low, the engine will get thermally shocked when cold coolant enters the engine causing a seizure. Hence opted out of it.

I don't know then if my bike is abnormal but very often when the fan has started in the parking, it stays on for a few seconds even after putting off the bike?

Cheers, Doc

[SunnyBoi]

Originally Posted by ebonho

I don't know then if my bike is abnormal but very often when the fan has started in the parking, it stays on for a few seconds even after putting off the bike?

Cheers, Doc

Both my duke's radiator fans turn off the moment I turn off kill switch so based on my experience it might be abnormal.

Then again, my Fiat Palio's radiator fan would run for 10 seconds after turning off engine when warm so that kind of behaviour isnt bad or abnormal either. If I were you, I'd want my bike's fan to keep running for few seconds after turning off the bike

[ebonho]

My question is, where is the fan drawing power from?

Its definitely not a run down. Its the fan moving under power. Maybe 3-4 seconds (will check ... maybe video it too).

Cheers, Doc