The other day, as I got off the Savage in a Wal*Mart parking lot, my gaze casually drifted over the left side of the bike.  "Hmm, I'd better grab my key.......

"What the....?"

I saw oil spots all over the belt!

"What the.....?"

After I got 'er home, I gave everything a good look.  

Rewind back in time.

A while ago, I had lost the seal that fits at the bottom of the speedo cable.  Couldn't find it (I didn't know about the starter "black hole" back then).  Not knowing what else to do, I rummaged around for an o-ring and put it in there.  No leaks.  

About a year later, I was doing something to the bike and dropped a washer into the afore-mentioned black hole.  By now, I knew where to look.  When I pulled the starter, I found the washer AND the speedo cable seal (the one that fits at the bottom of the speedo cable).  I confidently cleaned up the seal and proceeded to pull out the o-ring I had earlier put in its place and inserted the correct, to my way of thinking, part.

Well, the POS oil seal didn't.  The resulting leaking oil worked its way to the left side of the engine while the bike was parked on the kickstand and dripped on the belt.

I took out the POS oil seal and put another o-ring in its place.  I then washed the belt up good with soap and water.

End of problem.

Have you ridden the bike since then?

FWIW there's a drain hole in the bottom of the "Black Hole".  (Real handy for keeping your starter from floating in bunch of water in the rain)

Anyway, that drain hole is on the left side and goes under the front pulley cover.  So anything in the "black hole" drains out by the belt...and that makes sense since it leans over on the side stand that way.

So if your speedo seal was leaking into there that's cool.  You fixed it.  However, if you managed to cut the seal on the starter, you will also get an oil leak that makes your Savage resemble an old Harley

And let mine just be an example of what NOT to do.  I had probably had the starter out about 5-6 times and got in a hurry on the last one.  I didn't lube the o-ring or clean off the crud very well...cut o-ring.

I'm using hardware store variety o-rings in both our Savage speedo cables.  Work great and being a little fatter they don't fall out of the cable.

Digger wrote on 12/31/69 at 16:00:02:


TADA!

(Greg is taking a bow, now)

Digger wrote on 12/31/69 at 16:00:02:


Hey, I just learned it the hard way before you did.  For a while I thought there might have been a little Harley in the woodpile because of the leak on mine