Got home at 1:30 this morning with my 2 non-running Savages. Now I can't wait to begin my own Savage project! One is a partially complete 86. The other is an almost complete 97 with a Supertrapp slip-on.  
Here is what I know about the 97: has 5000 miles and has been stored a long time.  Supposedly had burned valves (too lean with the Supertrapp??). The previous owner put the head from the 86 on the 97. That's all I know.
First let me say that I will welcome all suggestions and help.  Hre is my plan at present:
1. get the 97 running
2. assess the work the 97 needs and what parts I will need (ands what parts I will keep from the 86)
3. begin tearing down, fixing, painting, etc as needed
My goal is to make a nice looking, reliable Savage with my priorities in this order:
1. reliability
2. fuel economy
3. any extra power is just a bonus
When I get a little farther along, I will have some parts from the 86 (and maybe some from the 97) that I can sell or trade for parts that I need. I will keep you all posted, and I'm sure I will be asking for help!

best of wishes for the project, steveh. see you are a relative newcomer to site so welcome you to an excellent source for help/ideas & just plain humor.

Welcome Steve. You found a great wealth of info and opinions here. Although currently I'm no help to you right now. I'm just getting my tools wet. Hope to spend the rest of the winter and early spring doing mods to the bike.
Now that I have a To-Do List, that just made the season alot shorter. Free weekends don't come around every weekend.
Have a good time, call us if you need us and post pics.

Thanks for all your replies! I already like this group!
To answer a couple of questions, I chose the Savage because I like the way it looks, because it seems to be a basic, straightforward design, because it is a single (I like things simple), nd because it isn't too expensive.
The supertrapp has 8 discs in it now. I don't know if the carb has been rejetted or not.

My first try at posting a photo to this site! Here is the Savage (now named the Terminator project) at stage zero. I will keep you updated about my progress.


Edit: I corrected to allow the image to display.
For steveh, if you want to see how the coding is done you can click modify and take a look.

The Terminator speaks!!!
...and the mystery deepens.
'Hooked up an old battery with jumper cables, poured some fuel in the fuel line (tank is off), and shot some starting fluid in the spark plug hole. Replaced plug, hit the starter, and it fired right up and idled as long as I kept adding gas to the fuel line.  This is good news!
Next I will try putting the tank back on to see if it will do more than idle.
I am puzzled by the fact that the bike started right up, however. Maybe the PO completely fixed the bike with the head swap?? I took the valves out of the original (97) head, but I can see no damage. The head and valves look fine to me. So what happened to the bike to make it sit unrepaired for years? Maybe something will become apparent when I ride it. Maybe I'll never know!??

steveh wrote on 12/31/69 at 16:00:01:


How reliable was the previous owner? It could be he didn't have a clue what he was talking about. Good Luck, take it for a ride & keep your cell phone handy just in case.