In this video, get a Point of View (POV) perspective of the installation of the RallyeForm Skid Plate for the KTM 790 Adventure R.
We’ve created the best protection for your KTM 790 Adventure & R with the all new RallyeForm Skidplate featuring integrated aluminum tank guards. One of the reasons the KTM 790 handles so well is the low-slung fuel tanks that keep the center of gravity low. They do however, present a vulnerability to impacts from the ground if not protected.
Here is the Transcript:
Hello, Iain here, and we’re going to do things a little bit different today. I’m at home in my own garage and I’m going to shoot an install video of the RallyeForm Skid Plate onto our brand new KTM 790 Adventure R. The skid plate comes in a bunch of different colors. I’m just going to be installing silver on silver and you’ll probably see my dog running around in the middle of this video at some point. So let’s get to it.
So first you got to take the stock skid plate off, it’s real easy. Hi dog. It’s really easy if you haven’t done it before. It’s held on with six bolts, one, two, three, four up front and then underneath two bolts at the bottom, right there, right there. You can use a Torx T30 or an eight millimeter wrench. Good boy, yeah we took it off.
Once the stock skid plate is out of the way, I assemble the RallyeForm plate. So it comes in two separate pieces. You’ve got the main center section and then you have these two tank protectors. Each tank protector is held on with four bolts, one, two, three, four. Four on the other side. They’ve got an eight millimeter nut on the inside and a Torx T25 head on the outside. These eight bolts are easy to find in the hardware pack because they are preassembled with red Loctite. They are not planning on you taking these guys on and off. You can just build it once and leave it on there. One thing to note is the M8 sized hole right here. I’m leaving this open on our bike because we are going to install Touratech crash bars because we had them on the bike already and if you’re not installing Touratech crash bars, you can install the Button Head M8 Bolt and a couple of big washers that are included in the kit. Once you have the skid plate built up, just set it aside and we’ll move on to the next step.
Now is a good time before we forget to install the little rubber pad here. This is an adhesive pad that comes in the kit. All you got to do is peel off the backside of it and stick it on right there.
Now it’s time to assemble the rear support bracket. You’re going to use this piece of stainless steel here, this one little bushing and then these two … These are called J-nuts or clip nuts. Actually Touratech makes it pretty easy, so this bushing, you press in from the outside and it only fits in one side of the bracket. So this side that it fits in here is going to be the clutch lever side on the motorcycle and you take these two J-nuts and you just slide them over the material, here and here. I’m going to need two hands to do that. Congratulations, you did it. Make sure that you line up the J-nuts over the holes. That will make it a whole heck of a lot easier for you when you’re installing the skid plate.
Now we’re going to grab two of these little rubber isolators and head over to the bike. I like to put a drop of blue threadlocker on this piece of the thread because you aren’t actually going to tighten these into the engine case. You’re just going to screw them in by hand and that just keeps it from vibrating out.
So here we are under the bike. You can see I already installed one of these rubber isolators here and the other one just goes right there in that threaded hole under the oil pan. So these things you just thread in finger-tight. Just get them a little snug so they’re not going to vibrate out just sitting here.
All right, back to the bike again. We need to remove these bolts on the foot peg mount. The lowest one on both sides, just one on each side. We’re going to see if I can [inaudible 00:03:53] these things out of here on high mode. Full power. Oh DeWalt.
Time to install this piece underneath the motorcycle. So grab the two M10 millimeter bolts. You’ve got a 50 millimeter and a 60 millimeter I think. Put a washer on both of them. Put a little dab of red Loctite on both of them and grab the M10 Nyloc nut. If you feel like saving yourself a trip from the toolbox back to the bike, these use a 8 millimeter Allen Drive and this is a 17 millimeter nut.
Okay, under the bike again. So I’ve taken the 50 millimeter bolt, the short one, and I’ve threaded it in on the clutch lever side and make sure that you don’t have it standing proud of the bracket here. You still want it really loose and on the throttle side I’ve got the longer bolt and same thing here, I don’t have it coming out past the end of this little guy here. Because now we have to sandwich the bracket up into place. Make sure that you have it oriented so these J-clips are on the front side of the bracket and that bushing that we installed previously is on the clutch lever side of the motorcycle. Now what we’re going to do is put it up in there like that, give this side a little squish and it will hold itself up in place.
On this bike, this part is a tight fit right here so I don’t need any of the washers but if you look in the paper instructions, it will say this position here, you can optionally stack a few M10 washers there if you need to increase the tension but on this one it’s plenty tight and I haven’t even run the bolts in yet so now that this is in place, we can run these bolts in on both sides and then we’ll throw a nut and a washer on the inside of this one here.
All right, so I didn’t save you a trip back to the workbench. I forgot to tell you about this washer, but that’s okay because you needed to grab this washer and you can grab some anti-seize and put just a little bit on the inside of the bolt here on the threads. See … Oh god, I touched it. You want to use some anti-seize on there because these Nyloc nuts create a lot of friction and these are stainless steel bolts and you can get a little bit of thread going which we don’t like. We’ve got this bolt tightened down tight, factory spec, and now we’re going to throw a washer and a nut on it and we’re just tightening the nut up against this bracket here. We don’t have to turn this bolt anymore at all.
I know it’s kind of hard to see under here, but this is just to demonstrate the way that the clutch lever side of the bracket works. The bushing that you put in just floats over the bolt and Touratech just supplies a bolt that’s longer than the factory one so it protrudes out but not so long that it hits the catalytic converter. This side over here is doing the work to make sure the bracket doesn’t fall out of the bike and this one’s just making sure that the bracket can’t push up into the cat, so bracket’s done.
All right, great news. It’s time to actually put the skid plate onto the motorcycle. So you’re going to pull out six of these Torx headed M6 fasteners and these two M6 nuts. These have a little captive washer on them. Pretty cool. Then grab a skid plate and head over to the motorcycle.
Hey, we’re under the motorcycle again. So this skid plate is not quite as easy to just swing up onto the bike as the stock one is. The reason being is you have the little studs coming through in the middle of the skid plate here, so … It’s easy if you just sit down next to the motorcycle and pick the skid plate up with your feet, line up those pegs right there, and then come up front, make sure the front is lifted all the way up, and then just put the bolts in. Just start them real loose, so you’re going to use the Touratech bolts in the front positions, the nuts with the fancy washers, and then the middle section holes, these are your KTM bolts you’re going to reuse and then all the way at the back, Touratech bolts again.
So remember those washers or those nuts with the cool little washer on them? Yeah, check this out. They don’t fall into your deep well socket. You’re welcome.
Okay, so I got all the bolts started except for the KTM ones in the middle and I recommending tightening in the following order. So start by tightening the studs that go up here into those holes. Then move all the way to the back here and do the Touratech bolts. At that point the plate should be sucked right up to the bottom of the motorcycle and then you can throw the KTM bolts here and here. Those ones thread into the stock little rubber isolators and the bolts are super short so you can’t really use them to pull the plate up. Once you got those ones, all six tight, then you can move up front and tighten these four into place.
Okay, congratulations. You’ve got your skid plate installed. Not only is it super strong and has two extra support points that the stock plate doesn’t have, you’ve replaced those plastic tank guards with these nice aluminum ones, and it looks awesome. Remember you can change these out for black ones or you can change the center section out for black ones. We give you all the options on how to do that, so now if you’re still able to move around, get up off the floor and go for a ride.
All right, there’s an option for bonus points here. The North American model bikes have evaporative emission systems, and they have this little drain hose right here that originally just pokes through a hole in the plastic tank protector. The European model bikes do not have this evaporative emission system, so there’s no whole provided in the Touratech plate to mount this hose. You have two options. One, you can just get a slightly longer piece of hose and actually run the hose just out the bolt hole on this side or two, you can get a piece of tape, mark a hole, and actually drill a hole in the plate and this hose fitting will clip right in just like the stock one does. So that’s what I’m going to do on our bike.
If you imagine that this angle right here, you just split the difference between the two of them, I went up about an inch and a half. Make sure there’s nothing behind the skid plate back there, as long as I don’t go through too far, I’m not going to hit anything. Quarter inch drill bit for that hole. Does it perfect, you can just pop the hose right in there and she’s good as new. This bike’s ready to rip. I’m going to throw the Touratech crash bars on it and she’s ready to ride.