Hello everyone! I have been lurking these boards for a few weeks, ever since I decided a Savage was the bike I was looking for for my girlfriend's first bike. I really appreciate all the effort that's gone into some of the guides and info on this board.

Anyway, I picked up a 1996 Savage for a steal. It needs a bit of work, I think, but it doesn't seem like anything major. I cut my teeth on bike wrenching a few years ago with my first bike, a 1984 Honda CB650. As far as I can tell, the Savage is going to be a lot simpler to work on than the Honda.

I guess this post is to introduce myself, and to get some info on whether I'm heading in the right direction. The bike seems very temperamental, sometimes it idles good, sometimes it takes a whole lot of throttle to even start it, the usual fueling issues for a bike that has sat for a while and probably wasn't properly maintained.

Today, I ordered a Raptor petcock, new air filter, a carb rebuild kit, oil filters, and gaskets for the clutch cover. I'm planning on taking a look at the timing chain, and probably ordering a slavvy tensioner. (What's the typical turnaround on those things?).

Planning on pulling the carb off and inspecting and cleaning everything. Now, since I have the carb apart, but still have stock exhaust and air filter, should I do anything with the jetting or the white spacer at this point in time? That was one thing I couldn't really figure out from my browsing the forum. Keep in mind, I'm not too concerned with getting improved performance, I just need it to be reliable. This will be my girlfriend's learning bike.

Another thing I noticed is a lot of crud and oil collecting on the fins around the engine block. Is this because of that leak in the head I keep reading about? Is this a big deal? I'm not sure if pulling the head off is something I want to tackle at this point in time.

Anyway, that's that I guess. Thank you for any information!

I would go ahead and do the white spacer mod while the carb is apart.  That mod did wonders for my bike.  If you don't have a small impact driver it would be a good idea to get one from Harbor Freight, it really makes taking the carb apart easy work.  When you reassemble the carb use some stainless socket head screws if you can find them.  Also make certain to line up the tab on the top rubber diaphragm carefully will the little shallow notch cast into the carb body so you have a tight seal.  That's my 2 cents worth.

Thanks for the welcome!

Yea, I already know about replacing the screws in the carbs with socket head cap screws from the Honda carbs, ugh. Actually just picked up an impact driver today for working on the bike.

I live in Southeast MA, which is apparently only around 100ft above sea level, so definitely no high elevation issues here.

Verslagen, I need to email you about your tensioners!

Well, the exhaust is definitely that wonderful shade of blue/purple. Also it backfires like a gunshot when you turn the ignition off.  Would you still recommend I don't do anything with the jetting at this point taking that into account, or am I just getting ahead of myself?

Maybe I'm just trying to take care of too much stuff at once.

Agreed, idle mixture screw for now, save any other carb tinkering beyond cleaning until you start monkeying with the exhaust and intake tract.

I'm running way too fat of jets for where I live, 420 feet above seal level. Fuel economy suffers, the bike smokes like an old diesel, kind of a "gurgling" exhaust note... Needs to be dialed back a couple steps. It is far too easy to over jet one of these bikes. Don't upsize until you absolutely have to.

Easy to remove, compared to the carbs on an Intruder 800, yes. Rather a pain in the butt to install if you don't pull the airbox out of the way. I tend to fold up both boots, get the carb roughly in place and then fight the boots back onto the casting.

Here is a link to the stock carb specs that is located in the Technical Section.
http://suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?board=tech;action=display;num=1098869040

If the jet is a Mikuni jet and not some wackky Dyna Jet number.....then it is waaaay too rich.  For stock bikes with stock air boxes it should be a #150.....or maybe a # 152.5.

I had great luck on mine with a #50 pilot, #150 Main and only 2 washeres on the needle instead of the 3 that are normally used.

I belive that one washer goes under the clip on the needle, and then what we do on top of the needle affects how far the spring pushes the needle up.....and changes the midrange fule ratio.  Normally the plastic spacer is on top of the needle clip - however we replace it with two or three washers. (2 makes the mixture richer than 3)

Go to a parts diagram to see how the assembly is supposed to be:
http://www.hondaofflorence.com/fiche_section_detail.asp?section=432120&catego...