All,

I have an 86 Savage.

I have owned it for a decade.  It was a daily rider about 8 years ago.

I am dusting her off and want to get her running again.

When I parked the bike I was having some major issues that I want to address before I start putting some more miles on.

The bike always backfired when turning it off and occasionally at low idles.  It backfired a lot if I had not run it in a while until I cleared it out.

What was more concerning were two other issues.  Before I parked it more permanently I seemed to be leaking and flooding the spark plug.
Towards the end of being a daily rider I was checking the oil and having to swap out for a new spark plug unless I ran it everyday.  It began to get expensive.

I was also getting a lot of vibration while I was riding and the engine sounded louder.   I decided to park it.

I would get it running again every couple years. All I had to do was purchase a new battery (I did not have a trickle charger).  And of course I had to change the spark plug.

Any ideas of what this problem could be and what I should purchase and fix before I run it again for extended periods of time?

I know I will need a new battery and spark plug.  What combo should I get?

Thank you for your time and input and thank you for letting me a part of the forum.

It was on the electrode side.

Odometer was disconnected when I purchased it.  It reads 14 thousand.

I would also do the head plug mod first then you should also look into the verslavy tensioner mod if the bike has that many mile.
PPl like you is where I have the ablility of buying a cheap bike,  someone gets a little issue then puts the bike away now they go to take it out to only find out it needs a battery! Now  I come in and say I'll give you $500 you think well the bike is broken and needs this and that...
I take it home,  I do the 2 mods I mentioned and have a perfectly good bike for under a grand aslong as I do the work myself.
These bikes get expensive when you pay someone to do the work.

Is a bike or $500 more worth it to you?
Can you try to do those mods yourself?

Try doing the work yourself,we'll wlk you through whatever you have issues with.

I am decent with a wrench and have people at my disposal who are better. I payed less than $500 for this classic and it is worth much more than that to me. I am waiting on a battery and new plugs. Once I get it to turn over again I will post more information. I think I can and will do the mods suggested with the cam chain and head plug. I am sure after reading this forum I will need to replace the chain. Should I do the verslavy now? I don't want to dump too much money into it if I cannot save it.

Is your original petcock leaking....and filled the crankcase up with gasoline (the diluted oil is getting onto the spark plug and the full crankcase is causing the extra noise?)

Obtained a compression tester.

Clymer says 145-203 psi
you have the 10mm adapter? you'll need that if you don't have one