So I haven't been riding my '94 savage much at all since I bought it. Because of house renovation, work and a new family member on the way it's mostly sitting in the garage. The plan is to start a big project with it as soon as my workshop is done.

But I took it out for a ride today and noticed someting that wasn't there last time I took it out. When given full throttle in let's say third the clutch is slipping. It revs up a bit before delivering the oomf, so to speak.

I still haven't done anything with the bike since I bought it. It's stock and boring, but have been running really well except for some bad air mixture tuning when I bought it.

What do you savage-gods think? Time for a new clutch? Can it be a wire issue?

To date nobody has ever worn out a set of clutch plates.  Ever.

Clutch uses a push rod that is changeable for length, to control a setting that is shown on the side of the cases by the relative position of the silver solid lever bar between two marks on the case.   Where is your lever relative to the marks?

"Slack adustment" is important, you must be able to put a nickel inside the gap on your clutch lever gap (you must have some slack in the system).

Oil is important, wrong oil can cause slippage.   Worse case here is changing back to the right oil and running carefully for a while until the right oil cleans all the wrong oil crap out of your clutch plates.

Lastly, long storage can deplete "oil soak" from the plates -- just ride it a while and see if it heals itself once it gets oiled back up good.


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Now you start talking, you have to cover each one of the items up above so you might as well answer Justin's question first.

Thank you for your replies. The bike has been standing still for a year before I bought it. Like I said, I haven't had time to do anything with it. I still haven't changed the oil since I'm not using the bike frequently. That's why I was surprised to see the clutch slipping yesterday, since it has been running good the previous 5-6 times I've took it out for a short run.

I get it that the right oil is important and that long storage may cause slipping, but then it should have been slipping when I bought it and not now after a couple of runs in the last couple of months.

I haven't been fiddeling at all with anything on the bike. There is a slight slack gap in the clutch lever like it has been since I bought it. Haven't checked the push rod yet though.

It's good to hear that it's probably not a bad clutch. Maybe an oil change and a run-through of everything will fix the slipping.

How much can you wiggle the clutch lever freely?

Old oil gets acidic, even if its low mileage.

Rotella T 15-40 is cheap & works fine,