MOTORCYCLE TRADER 81
A NEW DIRECTION
Moto One keeled over in 2008,
prompting Brad to buy the workshop
equipment and set up on his own. The
time with the dealership had established
his love of Ducatis and it was perhaps
inevitable that the brand would
become his main focus, personally and
professionally.
His own fleet includes several Dukes,
the crown jewel of which is an old 851
that’s recently been recommissioned
after a 13-year layoff.
Without question, a major part of what
he does is diagnosis – a skill that seems
to escape most of us mere mortals. What
does it take? “It’s experience. With a
charging system diagnosis, I actually
have a sheet and I’ve started following
that so I don’t jump ahead and instead go
through all the steps.
“It’s funny, I’ve had a 996 come in
recently that had an odd running issue.
I was about to take the fuel tank off but
thought I’ll just check the fuel pressure- I’ve got a rig that plugs into the quick
connectors. And that was the problem.
The quick-release connectors were
faulty and weren’t opening properly.
The fuel pressure was eventually
getting there, which meant the pump
and regulator were okay, but there was
some other restriction. It’s a problem
I’ve seen before.
“ Yo u have to understand that most
of the time you’re dealing with very
rigid systems. So you can’t just say, for
example, the fuel pressure is okay. No.
Get a gauge and test it. When you know
it’s okay, you tick it off the list, move on
to the next step.
“It’s interesting to see guys on the
internet saying ‘I’ve replaced all these
sensors’ and I’m thinking those sensors
almost never fail. I replaced a temp
sensor on a 1098 recently, because the
temperature information seemed to be
too slow to come up. I had an infra-red
“I didn’tdesignit,
make it or sell it.
But I’m the one
who has to fix it”SHEDMASTERS
Brad^ the^ Bike^ Bo