As you know, it's fuel or fire.  If it is cranking but not firing, first check the petcock..setting it on prime and try it again.....and it wouldn't hurt to check a few of the grounds for cleanliness and tightness.....then the fun begins.  Oh, and Happy New Year.

To run you need 3 things, fuel, air and fire.

lets count fuel as being checked.

air, open the air box and check the filter.  is it wet?  oil or gas in the bottom of the airbox?

fire, if you have a spare plug, pull the sparkplug lead and plug the spare in.  ground it on the cylinder head.  turn it over and watch the spark.

justin_o_guy2 wrote on 01/04/11 at 23:08:04:


Had to do as JOG said on mine.  I had re-jetted the bike to be less lean.  Well,  the Choke is actually a fuel enrichment circuit and not a plate in the carb.  On my previous bikes I always had to tweak the throttle when starting.  On the Savage, only when I didn't use the choke.  If the choke was on and I tweaked the throttle I flooded it.    Yes,  for the first few cold starts, I flooded the carb a bunch.  

Make sure its cranking at normal speed. If it sounds slow, it may be the problem. In my expreience,  my bike (mostly stock) doesn't appear to flood easily, but it does have to crank at a good speed in this colder weather.

How did you come to know the plug is no good?

i checked out the fuel system, it checked good. checked all connections under seat, removed tank & pulled wire off plug and stuck a mower plug in that was good ,it fired. so that just left the plug. just got everything together an hour ago, it fired right up.

It is great you were able to find the problem and fix it. It helps to have the knowledge from the forum to turn to.
Now get some pics posted of where your at as well as ride.. kim