I'll try that tomorrow, already broke into the PBR today.

For this afternoon, a little story from earlier:
I drove up to the local Toyota dealership that I have at almost every Summer. I made some good friends that I still keep close. One of which found my Savage on Craigslist, the other of which went with me to check it out since I had no clue what to look for. Today I rode it up there for the first time. Of course they couldn't help but marvel, rode it, and commented on how smooth and powerful it was. One of them had to go back to work , but the other one was on his lunch break. We talked for a while and come to find out he has a 70s model Harley Ironhead project. Come to find out he has an old Daytona bucket helmet and wants to give it to me. If it turns out to be what I hope it is I'll post some pictures. I have a pretty small head so if its anything over a medium its a no go. I'm being hopeful for now and I'm supposed to go pick it up tomorrow.

Well I feel stupid. Took the tank off today and found that the zip tie I used to hold the wires up the backbone together undid the neutral wire. Plugged it back up, and it was like nothing ever happened. I did get that helmet. It's pretty nice, especially to be free. It was the first time my buddy ever did pinstripe, and that was a decade ago. Here it is:

But I will admit when he said "Daytona bucket helmet," this was the first thing that came to mind. So I'm slightly disappointed, but still pretty darn happy with my new lid.

Art Webb wrote on 04/29/15 at 22:07:48:

According to helmet manufacturers the EPS dries up and gets brittle over time, most recommend replacing a helmet when it gets to 5-7 years old, just so you know

Agreed. I have a collection of beautiful helmets at home that I no longer use due to their age. Additionally, any helmet that has "done its job" should be retired as well. They are only designed to withstand one compression of the EPS. For that reason, I also have a collection of beautiful dirt helmets too. HJC loves me.

I checked the lining and it said "March 2011." Maybe he's been painting for a decade, but not pinstriping as long? Just another communication error. Either way, it's not THAT old.  After I reconnected the neutral wire, I went for a short ride yesterday. About 15 minutes in, my speedometer quit working. Brought it home, let it cool down, unscrewed the cable end to find this (lucky me) :

The more I read about the speedo issues the more I lean toward deleting the thing in favor of a Garmin or some GPS speedo

there are a few threads where the fool things start leaking oil, and Old Rider's was doing it pretty badly at one point during the Sisters ride, now a snapped cable on this bike
Never saw so many issues with the old front axle driven speedos
it'd be pretty easy to just put a pipe cap over the hole in the engine case, keep the lights as are

I never really closed this thread properly, but ever since I got the bike in running order I've put over 1k miles on it. All in all, I could have bought a decently new Savage with far less miles for what it cost me to get mine back running the roads. However, I've enjoyed learning so much from all the fine members of this forum as well as the Clymer's manual and some hard trial and error. Thank all of you that helped me either directly or indirectly in my rebuild. I'll be lurking around the forum trying to learn as much as I can and hopefully I can help others in the future.