So, in short, my savage no longer wishes to run.


In long, I ran out of gas the other day on the highway, pulled over, called the wife, etc etc. It started a little funny, in that i had to kind of "coax" the engine to throttle at first, but then once i got going it was fine. Got it home and turned in for the night. Now we are this morning. The darn thing barely wants to stay running, and in fact will just die for next to no reason. And by no reason, I mean turning the throttle even the smallest smidge. I tryed adjusting the mix with the little brass dealio, but to no avail.


Let me be more explicit. I'm fairly sure that this is a fuel/air issue, and it's most likely caused by my leaky main gasket (lack of funds :'( ). I've tried to get it to work in some combination of mix screw adjustment and whether the choke was out or not, and at what level. I got various degrees of success, the most successful being with the choke all the way out, and the mix screw at 5 full turns from all the way in. That let me get it back into the driveway this morning.

I guess I'm looking for more pointed questions that will reveal my true ignorance on this, my most favorite of motorcycles. Am I missing something?

Although your post is long......we need more information.

Have you tested your petcock to see if fuel is flowing to the carb?
Do you still have the vacuum petcock?

Good guess, JOG...  I forgot about the diesel runners... ...

In Serowbot's post the

Test your Petcock,.. don't just turn it to Prime..

words are red in color, mouse over them and clik on that sentence and it will take you to the petcock test, please follow all the steps in the test.

I did the same test to my wife's savage and ended up buying a raptor petcock....run the test and see what happens...but maybe run your brass screw only out about 2 1/2 to 3 turns first "2.5 to 3 is about the norm.

Thank you all, I have now fixed the problem.

I went out this morning and drained a bit of the gas out, and it ran great afterwards, I had to adjust the mix screw again, but I just went up and down the block no prob. I think I drained out the lower bouyancy bad stuff that was stuck in the line or some such, couldn't tell you. It didn't look quite like gas running out. A little... opaque? Anyhoo, I tested my petcock just to be sure, and it checked out, no fuel in the line and it didn't run "better". Thanks Dave, old_rider, Serowbot, justin_o_guy2, thanks for giving me some inkling of where to even begin. I am feeling more competent dealing with mechanical issues everytime I feel completely ignorant of the problem at hand. Then I come here, and you guys fill my head with all sorts of crazy ideas, like "it's fixable" and "unhook the line". Unhook the line! but then it'll explode!

Have a great day, I'm going to go to school, and not on the bus. I really hate the bus, turns out.

...inpossible...
I like that,.. I'm gonna' use it... ...

Never... ...