Congrats on your "milestone."

Have you considered doing your own maintenance. If you are concerned that you won't be able to do as good a job as the dealership will do, you might want to consider who does the work at most dealerships. It's often people with no experience, especially for routine maintenance. One of the main reasons I selected the Savage for my first MC was ease of maintenance, and simplicity.

Prophet_10 wrote on 12/31/69 at 16:00:07:

Look in your owner's manual under "maintenance schedule".  It'll outline what is supposed to be done at each interval.

I let the dealer do the first maintinace and checked everything they were to do.  Since then I do my own.  The dealer did have a very good machanic.  If you take it to the dealer, double check the oil level when you pick it up!!!!

It would seem like a good thing to have the dealer do the first service if for no other reason than for warranty records.

When I got this bike new last month the rear wheel was crooked, the battery only had one cell with water above the plate, tirepressure way low. I would not trust them with my bike No Way!! Besides I like doing everything on my machines myself, Always did. So I did my 600 miler last sunday. Took my time (5 hours) but it was fun knowing the head bolts were torqued right, the vales set correctly (set them at .004) and all those bolts on the cyl-head cover done right ( kept them on a card board copy of head to keep order correct). My cyl-head cover had plain black high-temp silicone sealer on it, so I used a superthin layer of the same on assembly. The new type rubber coated metal plug has bulged rubber so it fitted tight without using sealer. Set decomp at 4mm. Raised needle 1/2 (0.05") put in 152.5 jet, replaced soft carberator screws with good ones and adjusted idle mix and speed. NO more popping. Ssswwweeeeetttt.

Hi all,

I`m in the middle of  `1st Service' 600 mile thing myself...I called the dealer here [in RI] and, for 180 bucks, they don`t do the head removal at all anymore, and don`t recommend it either, odd because the Suzi books says to have `em torque all that stuff-but the Clymers recommends you remove the motor, because there is rarely enough clearance...hmmm????...

So, I don`t know.....And I don`t feel like going to deep during riding season...what do you guys think?

Also when I removed the left side head outer cover , that front bolt is captive under the top plate and it wobbles around. I can feel that it has a regular bolt head by wiggling a finger behind the decomp thing...anybody else have a loose bolt there? I think I`m not fathoming it right, maybe...I mean I can get around this but are yours like this front left cover bolt `hula dance'? Wish I had the comp skills to link but it`s #34 on the Ayer`s fische.

I`m going to take my time here cause I wanna do some carb tricks and install the tach while I have the tank, etc off- but I sure would like to get the straight scoop on head removal and that wobbling bolt.

Thanks, and any help would be well appreciated,

Bill

That bolt comes (slips) out during headcover removal, it sits in a U shaped cutout and you'll see it's supposed to be loose after nut removal. Also watch for the little seal on the tach drive cable where you disconnect it at the block. It can easely fall out when you remove the tank. Make sure all headbolts go back in the same place since several have a seal on them. DO NOT undo the bolt next (on the inboard side) to the Case vent tube. It has a phillips head cross on top. For torquing in hard to get to places check "cheap torque wrench" in the tech section. Have fun