[Noobman]

Hi there,

Ex-ninjetter here. So I've had this KTM for 3 years now and something strange happened:

I was riding my 2010 Duke 690 yesterday in heavy traffic trying to get to my destination but I never made it. My bike died (twice).
I was 10-15 minutes in to the ride from leaving my house, the temperature outside was around 30 degrees Celsius and I was in some pretty bad bumper to bumper traffic downtown when I noticed that the bike began "hunting" while idling. It usually idles around 1.5k-2k. But as I was stuck in traffic I noticed it was struggling to make that 1.5k, so I flicked the throttle a bit in a panic and it began choking and gasping and then completely died. Electronics still on just no engine. There was no indicator light or temp warning (is there one?), just that the bars were all the way up just before the last one. The fan does come on around the 6-7 bar mark.

So there I was in traffic frantically pushing the ignition button but to no avail. The engine was turning over it just wasn't firing up! So I ended up rolling it to the curb and into a parking lot trying to figure out what just happened.

I don't have many "mods" on it, just that "Thermostat switch upgrade" that most people with Duke 690's do. I had run this new thermostat switch for a whole summer in the past as well and there were no problems. I waited 20-30 minutes and tried the ignition switch again and presto it fired up no problem, no signs of choking or hunting for idle.
So then I started thinking it must a cooling issue.

I decided to ride back home and park it and research, but around 7-10 minutes in after heading back home it again hunts, chokes and dies. Again, the fan did kick in at the appropriate time but the bars were still all the way up when it shutdown the second time. I let it sit for another 30minutes and fired it up and went home, made it there luckily without it shutting down for a third time.

I checked the coolant level in the reservoir tank and noticed that instead of it being that fluorescent pink coolant it was completely clear like water with no colour, a little dirty in there like black sandy specs and nearly empty (way below the minimum required level). So I flushed and bled the whole coolant system and added some newly bought coolant!

Did everything by the book (literally by the KTM Duke 690 Owners Manual). I rode it around right after but couldn't replicate the issue. (I couldn't get the bike hot enough while riding around). Still very hot though (you could probably fry an egg in there somewhere), but not hot enough to raise the bars all the way to the top.

So what gives? Why was the reservoir tank filled with this strange dirty water instead of coolant ? and why did the bike die twice on me that day?

*(I've owned this bike for 3 years now I believe, and I've actually had it in storage prior to this summer, through last winter)*

**I forgot to mention, I did check all the fuses and they check out, non of them are burnt**