Well, none of the shops in my area will work on the savage until Fall, so like a fool I've started wrecking it myself.  The diagram of the cylinder head cover bolts was duly printed out and attached to cardboard as recommended (what a great idea, thanks). The 10mm bolts all came out but on the left hand side, the chart shows one more bolt but I have 2X 14mm bolts, one near the spark plug hole, one further back.  Did I misread the chart?  (Awaiting response before trying to remove the 14mm. )  idn't touch the 10mm on the right side with the philip heads indentation- hopefully that was the one I wasn't supposed to touch yet.  Do I have to remove the front L65 with nut?
The right hand side crankcase cover came off with a little spillage of oil- didn't put the bucket in the right spot by (as agent Smart would say)- missed it by that much.  When cleaning up the oil I found a very thin @3mm thick metal pin that is broken off , maybee 1/2 inch long.  Any thoughts what it is/where it might have come from. The bike is an '04 with 3000 miles.  Thank you in advance..
OH, yeah, this is being done so I can get a header bolt machined out.

Trip, leave the 14mm til later.  They bolt the head to the cylinder.
Concentrate of the 10mm first, get the cover off, then do the 14's.

The pin might be an alignment pin for the cover, there are 2, one front and one back.  Look for a couple of blind holes.

First, thanks for the replies.  I snapped an exhaust  header bolt, then the easy out..so, I now need to take the "cylinder head " (I think its called) off so a machine shop can remove the ofending bolt etc.  (If it sounds like I'm new at this. the answer is yes)

As far as(part of a pin)? I fond, it is solid not hollow dowel type.  The pin in cam gear doesn't sound very promising..

The cover comes off seperately?  Those 2 14mm bolts look like they hold the cover to the head.

Max- you say the center bolt stays in the cover, this is the one that has the philips' head indentation?

So..worst case senario- how much can I get parting the poor baby out?? Naw..at 62, it's time to learn new stuff- right?

So, all the 10 mm bolts are out, do I whack the head cover with rubber mallet or is this a pry with screwdriver kinda operation?

Thanks for the help Verslagen1.  Will try prying tomorrow am before work.  Have a great evening.

Whatever you do, don't follow this guy's head removal technique:



He was pretty good at getting the heads off, but things never worked right afterwards!

Check around for more bolts, did you get the 2 under the valve covers?

You might try backing it out with an open wrench.

But with it so tight, it might be best to yank it out.

Other option, take out all the engine mt. bolts and rock it forward for a little more clearance, Clarence.