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KTM’s are extremely popular, until it comes time to remove the pipe or shock.

Dear MXA,
I own a KTM 450SXF. I love it, but when I tried to remove the exhaust pipe it wouldn’t come off. My friends said that I had to remove the shock first. When I tried to remove the shock it wouldn’t come off. Help!

The standard MXA wrecking crew joke about the 2016-17 KTMs is that you can’t remove the exhaust pipe without removing the shock—and you can’t remove the shock without removing the exhaust pipe. That isn’t accurate, but it feels like it is. During test sessions with the KTM R&D department, the KTM guys would remove the swingarm every time we wanted to install different valving, a shorter shock or a lighter spring rate. They made it look seamless, but we told them that we would never remove the swingarm to change the rear shock. So, we started experimenting with an easier method and came up with the following 10 step solution.

STEPS 1 THROUGH 4

STEPS 5 THROUGH 10