I remember when the Savage came out. Thought to myself, lots of the right stuff (light, simple, belt drive, big single, air cooled), too bad it's a cruiser. Maybe Suzuki will make a standard or a cafe model some day.
No such luck.
Saw the stuff RYCA made. Def the right idea. Kits are a bit pricey for what you get. Add the cost of a donor bike, and it's not worth it to me.
One day one of the boys at work, (who rides a Shovelhead Harley he built) tells me he started on a Savage. Stripped it down in the crudest of chopper tradition, and was going to build a bobber. Then lost interest and tied the dismembered pieces to the rafters of the garage he rents in Brooklyn.
Now the building is going to be demolished, and he has to get out. Doesn't want the pile of parts. Am I interested. Free. And he has a pick-up truck and will deliver the junk to my garage (he owes me a lot of favors).
Sure, why not?  
The bike is a perfect example of junk owned by a penniless clueless chopper guy with only very crude tools. Lots of leaks, lots of silicone, parts removed with hacksaw and hammers. Woof.
Lots of cleaning up, and it starts to look not so bad. Start to make a triage list.
More parts go in the garbage. What's left of the rear fender, the carb. the footpeg assemblies, bars, handlebar controls, and so on.
Never liked cruisers. The whole 'girl-at-the-crotch-doc' seating position never did it for me. This will become a cafe racer. And a real light one at that.
Found a set of adjustable 38mm clip-ons on Ebay. New Chinese stuff. $55 with shipping from the old country. Not a big fan of Chinese stuff, but these are pretty nice. Chase all the threads with a bottoming tap, and replace the hardware with quality stainless stuff. Install. Done.
Found a new Grimeca 12mm master cylinder on Ebay. Bolted right up. Made a stainless steel braided brake line. Nice. Ordered all new rubber bits for the caliper. And EBC sintered pads. Maximize a rather wimpy brake, is the plan.
Bought a used brake disc on Ebay. CNC mill is down right now for a major maintenance, when it's back up I'll write a simple program to drill the disc. Done that for lots of bikes.
Had a new 40mm Mikuni flat slide pumper carb sitting on the shelf for decades. Carb is left over from a Sound Of Singles racer project (national championship in the 90's). Oddly enough, it bolts on perfectly. Have lots of Mikuni jets left over from the Mikuni I put on my XL250 in 1980.
Order a push/pull throttle assembly. Oddly enough it bolts up perfectly. Do a bit of head-scratching with the K+N catalogue and find an oval clamp-on pod filter that bolts up perfectly and has a lot more surface area than some of the little ones I've seen people use. Airbox is long gone.
Motor side covers looked like they were stored in a cesspool near a nuclear waste dump. Dry glass bead blast them, then wet vapor blast them. Still ugly. Scuff up with Scotchbrite pads and treat them to a satin clear coat.
Yanked the cam chain tensioner and decided to try a different approach toward the cam chain stretching thing (see the thread on that). Bought a new cam chain. Have to dismember some stuff to get the chain on.
Faux Panhead chrome covers were thankfully long gone. Remove the head cover and machine/grind off all the mounting nubbins for those things. Then vapor biast the cover to make it look more uniform. Die grinder off some of the casting flashings to improve air flow a bit.
Resisting the urge to pull the top end. I get it that the bikes only put out about 25 HP, but I'm prob shaving off 70 lbs, so that might make it fast enough (with the new carb and muffler). But I'm looking at good used heads for when I can't control myself any longer. Our SR500 Yam racer made 51 HP at the rear wheel. And that was with a 2 valve head and only 560ccs. Gotta imagine this engine could make a lot more ponies with the proper fondling. Patience, Grasshopper...
Bought a used rear wheel on Ebay, ditched the stock spokes and rim. Die grinder, file/sand off the parting lines from the casting. CNC is down, so I just use the bolt pattern ap on the DRO on the Bridgeport. Poke lots of holes in the hub to try to drop some weight. Hub onto the lathe, much sanding, end up at 1200 grit. Then polish. Hub is boxed up and heading to Woody's Wheel Works in Colorado for an 18x2.5 aluminum rim, stainless spokes,  and their VooDoo conversion that allows you to run tubeless tires.
New EBC brake shoes. Drill holes in them as well.
Gun drill both axles. Make aluminum spacers to replace the steel ones. Make a captive wheel spacer for the drive side of the hub that catches the inside of the seal so the spacer doesn't fall out when you remove the wheel.
Uses swingarm from Ebay. 4 1/2 grinder and zip cut wheels and off come the belt guard tabs.
Buy a set of 13" shocks from RYCA. At $200, they are probably pretty primitive, but they'll do for now. Installing them goes a long way to de-cruiserfy the bike. The 18" rear wheel will pick up the ass end even more.
Read the very-well-written article on tarting up the forks by Gary from Jersey in the tech section. Wondered what I was going to do about the top tree. Now I know   Bought a used lower triple clamp on Ebay and will start ravaging and savaging it this week. This will drop the front ride height a bit, and give me pinch bolts on the top tree. WooHoo!
I like what he did wth Race Tech cartridge emulators. I've installed a bunch, and they are only slightly better than stock unless you work on them. I'll try the mods he suggested, as well as the straight wound springs. The Ricor Intimidators are a better product, but don't seem to be offered for these bikes.
The front wheel has an oversized crap tire. Ordered a Michelin Pilot Activ (my fav bias ply tire) in 100/90, and two tubes. These tires a nightmare to mount with tubes. Bought an extra tube in case. If I decide I like the 19" hoop up front, I'll send out the hub I just bought to Woody's and have them do the same treatment as the back. Or I may do an 18" on the front. I'll see how this feels.
Was going to have a custom clutch cable made up, but the RYCA guys say they just re-route the stock. So, I bought a new stocker and did that.
I know I have to cut the cross-brace on the swingarm to clear the target tire. That doesn't leave much metal. Prob add some sort of bracing to the swingarm.
Speaking of bracing, the main frame doesn't have a good connection between the steering head and the swingarm. Part of me wants to run a pair of diagonal braces from the upper frame tube toward the swingarm pivot, and part of me wants to just butch up the motor mounts and make the motor more of a stressed member.
Not sure.
Had a cheapo plastic headlight bucket laying around. And a NOS German Hella H-4 headlight. Ordered a set of black Anodized headlight ears. Too long-headlight sticks out too far. Cut, file, paint, Voila!
Generic left side handlebar switch. NOS clutch lever assembly on the shelf. Prob use a single starter button on the right and the key as a kill switch. Simple is good.
Found and eBay store that sells beautiful aluminum seat and tank combo based on an old Benelli. Made in India, so the stuff is dirt cheap. The stuff came yesterday and is beautiful beyond my wildest expectations. Now I just have to make lots of brackets. And have a seat cushion made.
Picked the tiniest Shorai lithium battery that has enough CCA. This one is the size of a sandwich, is 14AH, has over 210 CCA, and weighs less than 2 lbs. Should be easy to hide.
Gotta laugh when someone says they'd like to build a bike when they've never even changed their oil  

Sounds like you're building a great bike. I'd love to see a pic of the tank: have considered one of those myself but haven't been willing to risk that much dosh on unknown quality. Indian made stuff is infamous for its random poor quality.

Hey Badwolf,
Thanks muchly for the tip. Didn't know about the Kaw pulleys. It'd be nice not to chop up the swingarm. What is the change in gearing from the Suzi-Q stuff, and what model Kawi am I looking for?
thanks,
-Armen

Very cool. Tempted to run the larger front pulley to raise the gearing. Can't bring myself to add 2 lbs to the rear wheel by adding the cast iron rear Kawi pulley. Wondering if there is an HD rear pulley that could work.
It'd be worth having to chop up the swingarm if I could pick up the gearing a bit more.
Then again, I might just get the bloody bike running first  
-Armen

This is my first post. I just bought my first bike. The Savage, Im completely disassembling it to build it back as a 700 cc bobber with a six speed transmission and a kick start. I expect to be on the road in six weeks.

justin_o_guy2 wrote on 05/29/16 at 18:39:39:


JOG:  You should also take an extra and convert the cam to bevel or gear drive!

ARMEN:  You got some cool tools, cool skills.....hopefully you can find a camera and document the process along the way, and you start a "Bike Build" thread to keep us all up to date.

I used the RYCA Cafe' as my inspiration, and a few of their parts that seemed would be hard or time consuming to make (rear set mounts, seat pan, seat/fender fiberglass, side panels, kick stand mount...and later on their top fork yoke).  I got rear set pegs from Dime City as the RYCA ones have the toe pedals too far outward and require you to splay your feet too far outward.  Choosing a tank/seat/fender/headlight combination can really set the "look" or you bike.  The wheel/tire, shock and fork changes can really affect how it handles.  A 120/80 rear tire is a better choice for a 2.50x18 rear rim....the 130/70 tire is supposed to be mounted on a 3.50x18 rim and it is too squeezed on the too narrow rim.  The width of the 120/80 will be nearly as wide at the 130, as the tire is made to fit the narrower rim.  If you want the 130/70....you should mount a 3.50x18 rim.

Dave

Just won an Ebay auction for a Motion Pro flywheel puller. Will see if I have the willpower to leave the flywheel alone.
Have visions of machining some weight off toward the center. Still have most of the flywheel effect, but drop some weight.
And then there is the issue of the 500 Vulcan front belt pulley sitting in my Bike Bandit shopping cart...
-Armen

I lighten flywheels for a friend's Duc shop. Knock a few pounds off (depends on which model, more or less).
Good news, rev faster, more engine braking.
Bad news- a bit more vibration.
It ain't rocket surgery.
I can buy a flywheel on Ebay for about $25. Poke some holes or skim some off in no time. If I don't like it, put the stock boat anchor back on.
-Armen