Hello:

By way of introduction, I bought a 1987 Savage in May, 2009 with about 1200 miles on it. I have been lurking here occasionally since, soaking up advice from many of you. The bike had been registered and run in summer 2007, so I was reasonably sure that the usual fuel and electrical issues inherent to an old bike that was parked for many years had been worked out. Believe it or not, it still had the original tires on it (which I immediately replaced since they were quite cracked).

The bike proved to be an able commuter, and an ideal bike for a re-introduction to biking after a 20-year hiatus (I did take the MSF course last spring before riding again). In October, I picked up a new 1200 Sportster, but I plan to keep the Savage and hand it over to my wife next summer. She is short and light, and the bike fits her like a glove.

However, I now have a few questions that you may be able to help me with. In October, the bike started cutting out randomly. It might stall at idle while the engine was warming up, or it might stall at highway speeds when fully warmed up. It would do it when temps were in the 20s or in the 60s (I live in Maine, and ride well into November, so it saw a range of conditions). It might run like a champ for 30-40 miles, and then stall several times over a distance of a few hundred yards. The bike always re-started right away after pulling over and hitting the starter. Sometimes, I could roll start it if it died when I was going 40-50 mph. After pulling in the clutch, I would release it and it might fire up. Running the petcock in the prime position had no effect on the problem, so I am pretty sure that it was getting fuel.

I am also pretty sure that the carb is not gunked up, since the problem started after I had put about 2000 trouble-free miles on the bike, and I had also run about a can of Sea Foam through it over the course of the summer while it ran quite well.

A few friends who are more mechanically savvy than I am think it is electrical. So, I was lucky enough to get some space in a friend's heated shop for the winter, and I tore into it yesterday. The bike had been sitting for about 4 weeks, but it fired right up without a hitch before I started working on it.

I pulled the tank and drained it. I replaced the petcock; even though I don't think it was the problem, I had already bought the Raptor petcock based on advice I read here and intended to install it anyway. I added some short lengths of rubber gas line below the springs in the speedo mount which will hopefully help the infamous rattle.

W.r.t. to electrical issues, I replaced the coil, plug wire cap, and spark plug. This is where it gets interesting. First of all, there was a good deal of corrosion on the top of the plug, and while the tip looked good (light brown, no deposits), the gap was about 0.040, which is too large. Those of you that have had the coil off this bike will know that it attaches to two tabs on the frame top tube. However, the screw attaching the rear of the coil to the frame was missing entirely. This would certainly cause the coil to vibrate, and I am wondering if it might affect the grounding of the coil.

I also pulled the connector out of the ignitor, and cleaned the spade connectors. I coated the new plug wire cap, connections to the coil, and ingnitor connections with dielectric grease.

After re-installing the tank, putting on a new fuel line, and plugging the vacuum port on the carb, I fired it up. It ran fine.

Of course, running and starting fine means nothing given the intermittent nature of the problem, and unfortunately, I cannot test ride the bike until April given that I live in Maine. But, I can probably get a few more days of shop time over the course of the winter. Do any of you have any specific things that I could do over the course of a day or two that might help me chase down this problem?

One final question: the bike also recently developed the well-known head plug cap oil leak. I bought a new head plug cap, and intended to install that as well. However, after I pulled the chrome glory covers, I looked at the manual and saw that it states that usually the engine needs to be removed from the frame to pull the top end. My question to those of you that have tackled this: do you really need to pull the motor to get the valve cover off, or can I just remove the top motor mount and work the valve cover out of there? If I have to pull the motor, I think that I will just live with the oil leak.

Thanks for any and all advice.

Before you pull anything off the engine you might want to check your battery cable connections. I had the same intermittent run fine and quit problem that plagued me for several months, except mine wouldn't always start right back up. Turned out my negative battery cable was loose at the battery terminal. I finally figured this out at the side of the road, between exits on an interstate hughway, in the middle of nowhere Wisconsin.

The thought of battery connections never entered my mind 'cause if the motor's running in my car and the battery cable comes off, it still runs. Go figure, it's different on our bikes. So check those connections first. Could be it's just that simple.

Jack

I had an intermittent cut-out problem, and it turned out to be the clutch lever cut-out....
Try unplugging and cleaning the connections at the clutch lever, kickstand, and throttle side shutoff....  
could be any one of those...

Thanks for the advice. I already had the loose battery cable problem very soon after buying the bike, so that was checked out immediately when the problem started, and it is not the issue. I have not had the kickstand connection apart, but I have already checked for free motion of the plunger and that appears fine. I pulled apart and cleaned the kill switch connection a few months back, but have not checked out the connection at the clutch. That will be next.

I think that beyond the clutch and kickstand switches, I will wait until spring and ride it first to see if I got lucky and fixed it. If not, I will then go in with a multimeter and start testing/pulling apart and cleaning connections.

It sounds like I should take a crack at getting the valve cover off. Good advice on dry fitting before I put the silicone on. I probably would not have thought of that, and then made a huge mess.

Has anybody ever had the pulse generator fail on these bikes? It is on the stator, and to replace one, the whole stator must be replaced. The symptoms don't seem to me like this would be the problem, but I am curious if anybody else has had trouble with theirs.

Willie wrote on 12/26/09 at 04:12:47:


Also check the small negative wire comming from the battery. The ( small) connector could be dirty.
My 2 cents