Why I decided to keep & repair my old Duke 390, despite multiple issues

Had plans to replace it with the 3rd-gen Duke 390 or a middleweight bike like the GSX750 and CBR650.

BHPian Dhruv Shetty recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

A small update on the bike and myself, the bike is still burning a lot of oil. Returned from Udupi to Mumbai on 3rd May as I got a good job opportunity overseas. In these 2 weeks of riding in Mumbai and ride to Pune & Lonavala, in the first few days after returning the battery had gone weak, I decided to use the RSA service to jump-start the bike, paid so much for comprehensive insurance so why not utilize it, took a good 60 kms of riding to get the battery back to full charge. On the 11th I had an overnight stay at Lonavala with my ex-office colleagues and decided to go to Pune to meet @Bhpianebonho and get a second opinion from the guys at Wahgoli, but due to our time not matching, I took a U-turn back from Pimpri-Chinchwad after hydrating myself properly. During the Pune – Lonavala trip, the bike performed pretty well except for a few areas. First were the brakes, the difference between organic and sintered pads is very noticeable, especially if one is an aggressive rider. During the entire ride, I could feel a good amount of fade and was applying more pressure and using 2 to 3 fingers on the brake lever, The braking distance increased and was less stable under heavy braking compared to the sintered pads where less pressure, one to 2 fingers on the brake lever, shorter braking distance with more stability. Second was the engine temperature, the temperature was hovering almost at the maximum, the weather being the big contributor to the engine and the braking system. The coolant was having a tough time keeping the cool, plus the engine burnt around 500 ml of oil which increased the load on the cooling system. Three times during the entire trip the bike shut down due to high coolant temperature. Lastly the uneven R.P.M at idle and sudden power cut under acceleration in 1st and 2nd gear. Sometimes the R.P.M will stay stable and in other instances, it will stay at 2000. In the final days of the bike staying with me, the bike would start with a very inconsistent R.P.M. which made the bike go off unless some throttle input was given to stabilize it. Keeping these issues aside it is still a hoot to ride.

During the 3 months of being in Udupi, I was in deep thought about whether to sell off the bike and buy a new bike, the decision had come down to sell it off and buy the 3rd gen 390, and with the decision final, I was excited and dreaming of the stuff to do with it and places to explore, until that fateful job opportunity message came up which changed everything, plan changed to upgrade to a middleweight or litre class bike, narrowed down to a GSXs 750 or a CBR650, towards the end of April the ad for my bike had come up on the classified section and Bhpian owned bikes for sale thread for small time of 1 day as I decided to keep my bike as the guys at Zenngine offered to take care of Tali in my absence, till I return to India permanently or back on holidays.

Dropped off at Zenngine, discussed the engine rebuild and other small stuff, and decided to take the plunge and switch to a slipper clutch.

Last glimpse of Tali before I left, at least I know she is in good hands and will be well taken care of.

On the engine rebuild topic, if I'm lucky I will just get away with a crankshaft & block piston or else a full engine rebuild with almost everything getting changed, like a new engine.

Until next time.

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