Son of a.... are you KIDDING me?!?!!!!!

[Formula390]

With the MASSIVE amount of rain we are getting here in Central Texas... I decided to "cheat" and let the weather wash the test mule... I parked it with the kickstand on a wide flat rock... and went back to cleaning and organizing the shop. At the end of the evening, I closed everything up, and went back to the house to get some dinner and sleep...

Then, the next morning... I come out and find... THIS!


The rain had softened the ground enough that the rock sank down into the mud, and PLOP over it went. Son of a *#&$@!!!!!

Had the wife come help me right it. Old man back don't tolerate hurking things like the RC back up to wheels side down... especially when one is still recovering from being broadsided by an armored truck 9 months previously.

Damage: Just a bent clutch lever. At least there's ONE advantage to flopping over into the mud.

Oh well. At least the rainwater collection system is overflowing.

 

[OldVet]

Bummer... It looks like the next thing to fall over may be that yellow hoist

 

[Formula390]

Bummer... It looks like the next thing to fall over may be that yellow hoist

I drug the engine hoist over to first see if I would have been able to use it to help me right the bike. Have doctors strong recommendation to not lift too much, so that was my first thought. It became clear I needed to just get the wife to lend a hand once I got it over there and realized I'd probably just make things worse using it. Recovery from the armored truck has been frustratingly slow!

 

[simpletty]

It looks like a tired horse sleeping on its side..... damn dude that sucks

 

[Treachery]

I knew that KTM Adventures took naps, but not the RCs...

 

[SneakyOwl]

Did the rain steal your fairings?

 

[Diploman]

Matt, You might want to check your steering head bearings after that soaking. On the Duke Forum we received a post from the Administrator of the German Duke Forum who had been riding a 2013 model for a couple of years. His steering began to feel a bit notchy and unstable so he opened up the steering head and found some quite alarming rust on the caged ball bearings. Posted photos. He had never ridden in rain, but rode frequently in the foggy, misty, damp German climate. We have seen some other examples of the steering head bearings being vulnerable to water infiltration and corrosion. This winter I am planning to get a set of tapered roller bearings from AllBalls Racing to replace the stock bearings, just as a precautionary upgrade. To date my bike has had no problems with the stock bearings (5,500 mi) but I do not ride in rain and my bike is garaged. At the very least, the stock bearings can benefit from a generous dose of grease, which seems to be in short supply at the factory.

 

[Formula390]

Did the rain steal your fairings?

LOL No, the fairings came off two days after I bought it. As a test platform for development work, the bike is disassembled more than together. The bike will get bolted back together "enough" for most testing... and then back on the stand it goes. The side panels got sold to a guy in Florida, and the blinkers to a forum member who had crashed and needed some stock ones asap. The belly is in the garage at the house... SOMEWHERE. The shop is a place where metal chips are ALWAYS flying, so the bike gets lots of various things flung on it... From hot chips, oil, coolant, etc... So I've been VERY apprehensive to put bodywork on it a might care about.

I've been quite tempted to deck it out in FULL carbon fiber...... But then I realize that the accountant (aka Wife) would likely brain me with a mallet for "borrowing" inventory for "marketing" purposes!

 

[Formula390]

Matt, You might want to check your steering head bearings after that soaking.
{SNIP}
At the very least, the stock bearings can benefit from a generous dose of grease, which seems to be in short supply at the factory.

Good idea. I'm going to be doing some work on the bike this afternoon so will take a look and see how much, if any, grease is in the head bearings and post the results. This was it's only exposure to water / fist bath... So I don't expect rust, but good to check and see if there's any lube on em.

 

[MrGrody]

Damage: Just a bent clutch lever. At least there's ONE advantage to flopping over into the mud.

To this day I've always had great luck using a good size Tupperware lid under the kickstand.

The wife still doesn't quite know why she has more containers than lids haha

 

[Formula390]

Good idea. I'm going to be doing some work on the bike this afternoon so will take a look and see how much, if any, grease is in the head bearings and post the results. This was it's only exposure to water / fist bath... So I don't expect rust, but good to check and see if there's any lube on em.

Follow up. Upper headstock bearings have grease.

In addition, the Formula390 steering damper kit for the Tyga Triple Upper and clipons fits PERFECTLY!

 

[Diploman]

Good to hear that the steering head bearings are in fact greased! It appears that the factory may have learned from experience and improved their assembly procedures since 2013.

Steering damper looks great!

 

[Formula390]

Good to hear that the steering head bearings are in fact greased! It appears that the factory may have learned from experience and improved their assembly procedures since 2013.

Steering damper looks great!

The RC390 Test Mule here was the #2 delivered RC street bike in Texas... so it's one of the first that hit the states. I think the variability of "learned their lesson" seems to be hit and miss. Some have grease, some don't. We've had reports from other owners who didn't have grease in their headstock, as well as the swingarm.... so your caution to check was well heeded. I'd had the triple off probably 2000 times when I was putting the initial steering damper kit together, so was confident there was grease in there... but I didn't KNOW for sure so it was worth paying attention to while I had it apart.

Also, yes. The steering damper kit is WAY improved now with the mounting via new bracket. It is keyed to the triple, so doesn't require one to torque it down within an ounce of stripping the triple like the GPR requires too. It's all a very clean and dare I say perfect fitment. Ditching the upper bracket which was required with the stock triple is something I'm very happy about to be sure, and am thrilled it fit perfectly on the first try. Well, after much CAD back and forth and such... but yeah, it's dead nuts on! I'll still offer the "classic" damper kit, that'll work with the stock triple... but expect that those who want the damper kit these days will also be looking forward to running with the new triple and clipons.

Now I just have to decide which color to have the parts anodized in... stick with clear, or go with black... decisions decisions decisions.

 

[Diploman]

Matt, the steering damper is really an impressive piece that displays precision manufacture. Nice!! If I were racing I would snap one up tout de suite.

It's a bit discouraging to hear your conclusion that greasing the steering head bearings during assembly seems to still be a random, hit-or-miss process, still not systematized. The Bajaj factory is into the 4th year of 390 assembly now. BMW will soon start production in India of their new G310R, a competitor to the Duke, with their joint venture partner TVS Motors. Will they find the secret formula for high-quality manufacture in the developing world, or will they undergo the same learning curve with inconsistent results that we have seen from Bajaj? I think the latter. In any case, I'm planning to go with a set of All Balls tapered roller bearings this winter, just so I won't have to worry and won't have to disassemble my triple tree again. A set of KTM replacement bearings - the caged balls - is rather inexpensive BTW, about $35.

 

[Diploman]

Forgot to mention: It's OK if the swingarm bearings are not lubricated. They are not conventional bearings or bushings but an advanced self-lubricating material called IGUS bushings. Grease not required.

igus® - iglide® Plastic Bushings

 

[Formula390]

The Bajaj factory is into the 4th year of 390 assembly now. BMW will soon start production in India of their new G310R, a competitor to the Duke, with their joint venture partner TVS Motors. Will they find the secret formula for high-quality manufacture in the developing world, or will they undergo the same learning curve with inconsistent results that we have seen from Bajaj? I think the latter.

So the problem with manufacturing in India is one of culture. It's cultural core is one of pacifism. I'm not being disparaging. This is just the cultural norm. Without getting into a full dissertation on the subject, the high level summary is it's NOT culturally acceptable in India to point out fault in another. Period. The byproduct of that norm is when it comes to quality control, the culture isn't conducive to production to exact standards because when an error or oversight is discovered the acceptable thing to do is to do nothing. So problems aren't brought up. Faults move down the line. Nobody will pull the chain and halt the line. No single individual will EVER stand in the face of their boss's boss and say "STOP THE LINE!" and hold firm.

I have years of quality assurance under my belt, and have outsourced that to Germany, Canada, Mexico, China, Japan, and yes.... India. I was able to work through the cultural issues with all of those nationalities BUT for India. Even the most westernized of native Indians was utterly and completely incapable of performing acceptable quality control. Period. It's just not socially acceptable. In the western world a person can point out a mistake someone made, without it seemingly like also saying that the one who made the mistake is defective as well. That's not the case in India. A quality control person in India doing their job is shunned and treated like rude pariah. It just can't be done. Be it software development, or manufacturing, quality control can't be done professionally to western standards there. A lot of companies have tried, and as far as I'm aware, none have succeeded.

 

[Diploman]

Very interesting analysis, Matt. So you are saying essentially that if a Western company wants to establish a low-cost manufacturing/assembly operation in the developing world, it would be better from a QC point of view to go someplace other than India?

 

[Formula390]

Very interesting analysis, Matt. So you are saying essentially that if a Western company wants to establish a low-cost manufacturing/assembly operation in the developing world, it would be better from a QC point of view to go someplace other than India?

There are many instances of taking manufacturing to the third world and producing quality. I know quality control because that's what I did as a career for 25+ years. I established successful programs all over the world. Testers and quality control people have to be able to stand up to management and their peers and tell then there's a problem. The very nature of the role is that one of confrontation. You can't take a nation of pacifists tho, and flip a switch, and suddenly have a workforce ready and able to serve in a position where a fundamental requirement involves confrontation.

In places like China, this isn't a problem. Laughably so! Once you've trained your quality team, they LOVE the job. Culturally there are no problems with confrontation. In Japan, there is the issue of being TOO agreeable when they disagree, but once you learn the tricks of the culture, to get someone to ACTUALLY tell you what they think, you get quality. In Brazil, Germany, Canada, and the U.S.... No problems at all. India. No. Chance. It just can't happen.

The only method which was CLOSE to being successful involved doing QC out of country. That works for software development, but not manufacturing where the feedback loop is necessary to be local. I spent far too long trying to train Indians to be QC professionals. I spent time in country showing them in person how I did the job, training them, mentoring individuals who showed SOME potential. I'd spend countless hours on the phone or Skype. Multiple calls daily at 12 hour intervals. Years in all of my life. To no avail.

If it's possible to get Indians to be successful in a QC role, I never found the secret. I know many others personally and professionally who also tried. I've never seen it be successful. Even when they find problems, and maybe, possibly, have the nerve to report and flag what they found, any, ANY pushback, resulted in that crumbling. Testers are treated like pariah by everyone. Confrontation isn't tolerated. Eventually the QC team is outright ignored, even if they are doing their jobs.