I took the day off yesterday, worked on the savage.

Torqued the head bolts. Man, were they tight. Way tight. Thought they would snap, as tight as they were. Did em one at a time, oiled em, per Old Feller's thinking. Get to the front one, by the exhaust. Loose, came right off. Now the rear one, pretty loose. Threaded it off with my fingers, the stud came out. With the nut. Should have been looking. Took two hours to get that stud back up there. Thank god it was just stripped the first couple of threads. Rechecked all the torques, all good.

Measured the head cover bolts. Previous owner had the 130 in the 125 hole. The 125 hole was stripped to. So, I put the 125 in the 115 hole, snugged right down. Put the 130 in the 130 hole, snugged right down. The 125 hole is completely stripped, even the stud spins. No hope for that hole.  Will have to be fixed later.

Previous owner had mixed up the bolts to some of the other holes too. I was able to fix them with a tap.  Got lucky there.

Adjusted the valves, buttoned her right up  again. runs fine. I will have to glue that stud in the 125 hole. Hate to do it, may not come out. Will try a little blue loctite, with a sliver of delran, delrin, see if that works.

Well, it's nice to have it on the road again,

Oh, ordered the 6 mm threaded rod from fastenal, did not come in yet. One of my hammer drills has a depth gage. Which consists of a rod. Just happened to measure 6 mm. Tapped it, cut it to the right length first. Got tired of waiting on fastenal.

My brother, He is not mechanical. Has a Harbor Freight tools right near him. He is now the proud owner of a nice socket set, really. I bought that 60 dollar tap set, at Harbor Freight, it will work, for him. Oh, He got a few other tools too. I set up his garage pretty good. Old craftsman roll around, among other things.

Thanks for all the advice, made the job a lot easier.

chuck