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Hailwood trail
Our bikes: Ducati 1985 Mike
Hailwood Replica Mille
May 2026, by Guy
'Guido' Allen
Today's mission was to
pull the 1985 Ducati Mike Hailwood Replica Mille out
of the shed and ship it off to young Peter S, a
highly-skilled expert in old Duke electrics. All this
was done with the assistance, and under the
supervision, of old mate and marque expert Ian
Falloon.
The machine usually runs
brilliantly.
Our issue was the
starter sometimes refused to turn and quickly drained
a perfectly healthy battery. Peter has a couple of
theories. Given it's a low-kay machine (under 3000km
from new), it's possible the problem is the plain
bearing on one end of the starter has dried up. Or not
– we'll see when it's opened up.
Once that's done, we'll
bring it home and finally replace the dodgy
aftermarket handlebars and indicators for original
kit.
And here's frustration
for the week: because the factory starter wasn't
playing, we pulled out our roller starter kit to get
it going, as the desmo needed a gallop.
One of the challenges
with that is the bike is tall, heavy and clumsy to
handle with narrow handlebars and takes a lot of
effort to roll back on to the starter rollers –
particularly if you're doing this alone. I should have
called for help.
On the final attempt of a few, I got it up there, but leaned too hard on the OEM windscreen and cracked it. These are now very difficult to find.
Let me know if you
have one for sale, please, via guyallenaustralia@gmail.com.
See our
previous story on this bike.
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