Hello, I have a semi-basket case '86 Savage.  I watched it go from a relatively decent bike to a rolling rat in the span of a few years while it belonged to a neighbor.  I recently picked it up for cheap.  I'd like to make a bobjob/ratbike/chopper/war pig out of it.

After an afternoon of playing with it, I can tell it needs a head gasket, fork seals, rear shocks, a battery, and a lot of cleaning.  Also the rear fender is cocked so that it doesn't sit directly over the rear tire.  I was relieved to find that it was the fender and not the swingarm!

I looked through the Chilton's (Clymer?  I forget which.); I wasn't that impressed.  It does tell you how to perform service procedures, but it doesn't answer more "real world" questions, like, What's the blue wire with the yellow stripe?

Basically I know nothing about this bike except that I like the way it looks and sounds, and it looks like it would be easy for my wife to learn on but still frisky enough to be fun for me.

There seems to be tons of good information on this site, but it's all buried.  Anyone point me in the direction of a few threads on care and feeding of the LS650, and basic performance mods?

Thanksabunch!

[glow=red,2,300]welcome [/glow]

CLICK SEARCH!

its a great feature

oh and check ebaymotors for all kinds of stuff, i have got alot of stuff for cheap.

I am almost sure , You don't need a head gasket, but You hava the famous oil plug leak /read the posts/. The rear shocks are a breeze to get from ebay and change /or You can go with diff. shocks/. The cleaning is the first thing to do, before You start working.
Read the posts in the technical section as somebody mentioned before. It will worth Your while.
Welcome !

Jeez, that doesn't make me very happy.  When I cracked open the throttle at highway speed, the revs came up right away but the bike took a few seconds to actually accelerate.  That plus the oil leaking from the head gasket told me compression loss due to bad head gasket.  But maybe the clutch is slipping?  Could be wrong type of oil on the wet plates.  Or could need a clutch.

Oh well, winter is a long season in New Hampshire.

Thanks (I think!   ).  Yeah, lotsa resources & good folsk here.  my "seat/fender contraption" is, IMO, more comfortable than the stock seat.  I'm not kidding.  I don't sit on my tailbone!  Anyway, keep us posted on your progress.

Seems like the simplest thing to do first is change the oil and filter so you can be sure you don't have clutch slippage due to the wrong oil.  Then go from there.