KTM Dual Sports

[Gam]

My KTM 790 is on it's second wheel and third set of rotors in 6000 miles. 4000 of those miles were accumulated on two long trips. They went bad on both of those trips.  Georgia like many states, exempts motorcycles from the lemon law. A guy in CT got his money back because of this in a lemon law hearing. The bike has been sitting up most of the time I have owned it. So a guy said he took a flat file to his rotors and knocked off the high spots and has been good for 13000 miles. It sounds nuts and the rotors themselves are not the problem, but I had nothing to lose so I took the new wheel off.  I tried a ratchet to remove the front axle spindle nut and it would not budge. Tried a breaker bar and would not budge, tried a 250 ft/lb impact wrench and it would not budge. I finally put a 4 foot pipe on the breaker bar and broke it loose with all my weight on it. 170 lbs. x 4 ft = 680 ft/lbs. There was no Loctite on it. The caliper bolts and fork pinch bolts were completely dipped in blue Loctite.  It took the impact wrench to get those out. I completely boogered out one pinch bolt and had to drive an oversized hex socket into it to get it out. I ordered new bolts several weeks ago from 2 different places, neither place has shipped.  The good news is I bought a 1974 Yamaha DT 250 a couple of years ago, it has been sitting at friends house in Colorado. I have made arrangements to have it shipped. I bet it is on the road before that KTM.

[norton73]

My KTM 790 is on it's second wheel and third set of rotors in 6000 miles. 4000 of those miles were accumulated on two long trips. They went bad on both of those trips.  Georgia like many states, exempts motorcycles from the lemon law. A guy in CT got his money back because of this in a lemon law hearing. The bike has been sitting up most of the time I have owned it. So a guy said he took a flat file to his rotors and knocked off the high spots and has been good for 13000 miles. It sounds nuts and the rotors themselves are not the problem, but I had nothing to lose so I took the new wheel off.  I tried a ratchet to remove the front axle spindle nut and it would not budge. Tried a breaker bar and would not budge, tried a 250 ft/lb impact wrench and it would not budge. I finally put a 4 foot pipe on the breaker bar and broke it loose with all my weight on it. 170 lbs. x 4 ft = 680 ft/lbs. There was no Loctite on it. The caliper bolts and fork pinch bolts were completely dipped in blue Loctite.  It took the impact wrench to get those out. I completely boogered out one pinch bolt and had to drive an oversized hex socket into it to get it out. I ordered new bolts several weeks ago from 2 different places, neither place has shipped.  The good news is I bought a 1974 Yamaha DT 250 a couple of years ago, it has been sitting at friends house in Colorado. I have made arrangements to have it shipped. I bet it is on the road before that KTM.

Damn.

Maybe the real issue is how the wheel is being installed. Sounds like someone has been happy with the power tools installing the wheel. Perhaps they are bending and tweaking everything out of alignment, causing some of the issues?

I do know you can warp brake rotors on cars if you don't tighten the lug nuts evenly. I'd remove the rotors too and tighten them back down evenly in steps.

[Gam]

I took the wheel off to put on a set of aftermarket rotors, that time  the spindle nut started spinning when I put a socket on it to see if it fit!  They had taken the front wheel off to put Kenda Big Blocks on it. When I put it back on everything was torqued per the service manual and I criss crossed around to bring the bolts up to torque, problem returned.

[Gam]

I thought this website was gone until I saw a link by Klaviator on Advrider. So I got rid of that KTM 790, usually when I sell or trade a bike there is a twinge of regret, not with that one, I was thrilled. I got a new motorsickle, after so many heavy bikes, I had forgotten how much pure fun a motorcycle without a lot of stuff hanging off of it could be.