Hey Savages,

I bought my 1987 Savage about 3 months ago with mileage in the low 18,000's and have been casually riding it around.  It's my first bike, and first carb-based engine, but I'm familiar with engines to a point and one of the reasons I bought it was to get better with them.

All was well until earlier last week, when a storm came through and I wasn't able to cover the bike in time.  I get up the next morning and the bike wont turn on, but after shifting the battery around it started and so I drove to work.  The bike putted a lot on the ride to and from work almost like it was running out of gas.  I tightened the connections when I got home, and everything ran smoothly... for a bit.

On Monday, the bike started chugging along again like it was low on gas, and actually almost died on me.  I barely got it home.  No wet connections, no loose connections, but when I checked this by removing the battery, the positive terminal looked like it had melted a little bit?!?! I reconnected the battery after leaving it alone for a day because I was going to drop the oil and needed to get it warmed up, and the engine started right up.  Quick test drive and it runs fine... I don't trust it...

The bike is 10 miles shy of 20,000 and I am about to do a ton of work on it this weekend, because a ticking sound has also begun to arise and get louder.  Since I bought the bike used I was planning on doing a whole shakedown (cam-tensioner check, valve clearance check, change the oil and oil filter, etc.).  Since there are so many experts on this forum, I thought I would at least get a consult on the issues I've been having in case I need to do something else while she's torn down.

I uploaded a video of the engine running to youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho05kFVsf0A

Firstly, does the idle seem a bit high to anyone?  I'm not familiar with these bikes, but it seems like it's thumping away a lot faster than others I've seen (on youtube). Is there any way to diagnose that ticking?  I figure its either the valves needing adjustment or the tensioner about to conk out and turn my bike into a paperweight. Lastly, does that odd behavior I experienced before sound merely like a loose wire somewhere, or paired with the ticking a bigger problem?

Thanks for any help you guys might be able to give.  I look forward to learning all I can from all the Savage gurus out there.

Haha, I'm glad my ignorance can help others  .

So how can you tell it's a bad tensioner vs valve issues?  Would valves tapping be at a different rate than the tensioner ticking?

Also, I take it shouldn't turn my bike on anymore?

Oldfeller, I actually have a raptor petcock installed already.  It's pretty new, I installed it maybe 1000 miles back.  I plugged the old line by screwing a screw into the end of the hose.

Could there still be an issue in that area?


Remove the hose and put a little rubber cap from the auto parts store over the brass spud in the side of the carburetor -- you could have an air leak.

I'll check the clutch lever tomorrow (I have to run for a bit and it'll be really dark when i get back).  I'm almost out of gas, because I hit reserve maybe 2 miles ago, should I just let her die on her own?  Adding seafom to a low tank won't do damage right?

I was hoping to open her up this weekend, if I got verslagen paypal money tonight, what do you think the odds are that he could get a verslavy out to me in NC by fri?

Not very good, he may be out of stock right now as folks have got to send him back the center shaft that they take out and he's got to modify them which takes some time.   Seafoam goes into a full tank of gas or you will be too concentrated and run like crap from that reason all by itself  .....

I don't want to cause any trouble, I can wait out the week if it'll be for the better. I can open her up and do the other stuff.

She's not my only way to get to work, but definitely my favorite

There is a 3 front war full of wear stuff going on in your clutch all the time.

MOST MINOR EFFECT - Clutch plates
The clutch plates wear extremely slowly (we have never seen a clutch worn out yet -- Clymers has the thicknesses of the plates swapped in their printed materials BTW -- a known Clymer's error).   Other than getting coated with friction reducer crap from using the wrong motor oils, clutch plates have not yet been a real failure point.   Really, when troubleshooting clutch wear I tend to ignore the plates mostly.

BIGGEST EFFECT - Clutch rod and rod seating surface wear
The clutch rod actually gets slightly shorter as the eccentric wears the outer end of it and it wears on the seating surface inside the spring loaded face assembly.   Longer clutch rods fix this issue and move your clutch lever back up into the middle to top of the range cast into your cases.

BIG ARSED BUT TOTALLY ADJUSTABLE EFFECT - mechanical clutch cable system
The clutch cable and all its levers and brackets do wear, the steel cable itself stretches and the moving steel eats into the plastic and steel bushing surfaces inside the cable itself.  This really doesn't do much as it seems like you have a ton of adjustment range on the lever screw and the clutch lever nuts -- but all that range is only about 1/3 of the amount of wear tolerance in the clutch plate's stack up.   The only way to get to or use the rest of the plate stack up total wear tolerance is to put in a longer rod.  And yes, I do mean go past what Suzuki supplies and go longer if you need to.  You likely aren't here yet, BTW.

It sounds like you need a longer clutch rod.   And a baggie lube job on your clutch cable.

Your problems with engaging the shift dogs in first and second is typical of the beast.

The gears are small, so the standard dog width is seemly "large" compared to the turn radius of the little gears -- there is approximately 25% of the rotation of these two gears that is dog face hitting dog face with no chance of the gears going into engagement.

Fix is to shift while the bike is still moving, this allows the dog gaps to find each other.


Finding rods -- go to the post you mention and write down the part numbers and punch them into Ron Ayers or Bike Bandit or whoever you use to buy parts from.

Should be reusable as long as it's still in 1 piece. Even a very small section missing will cause a leak. I would still put a thin smear of the grey on there just to be sure.

Whatever happened with the Pos battery cable looking melted? I remember you saying when you shifted battery or cable around it ran ok then? I had the same problem with the pos terminal touching the battery box, when fully installed. I had to wrap it all up with electrical tape. Mine is also an '87. Was just wondering if that issue gave you any more trouble.