Hello Everyone,

It's been a while. For those of you with a long memory I am the guy that bought a box of bits that become a 1997 Savage. Well the bike performed beautifully and my daughter fell in love with it, took her foundation course, got her license and bought the bike.
She is about 4 hours away and the Savage is in trouble. So first things first, this is a stock Savage with 19,000 on the clock and a raptor petcock.

The symptoms are that;
The engine starts fine and with the enrichener pulled drives well. She drives a mile to the local town pushing in the enrichener once she is up to 50 mph or so.
The local town has a speed limit of 25 mph and here is where the problem lies. The engine does not want to run at 25 mph. It stumbles, tries to stall, pops and so on. Once she is clear of the town she can rev the bike hard get it up to 50 + and it runs like a dream. In fact she tells me that she has had it running at 70 and it is just fine.
I have promised her that I will fix it but before I make the 4 hour journey, a couple of questions.

I am thinking that the slow running (pilot) jet is blocked this would account for the bad running at low throttle setting and the fine running when the throttle is half open and beyond. In addition the enrichener bypasses the pilot jet which is how it runs well at all speeds when cold. Am I on the right track?

Secondly my manual says to remove the carburetor undo the two gaiter clamps and pull it away. From memory the manual should say,
Disconnect the battery
Remove the battery
Remove the battery box
Now you have enough room to remove the carburetor.

Is it possible to remove the carburetor without removing the battery box?

If not, can you remove the fuel line and the throttle cable, undo the clamps and rotate the carburetor 90 degrees in order to remove the bowl and get at the jets. It seems to me that the top will foul on the frame but I could be wrong.

Anyway sorry for the wall of text and thanks for any ideas you have.

DaveP

Stock= oem cam chain and tensioner?
Has it been sitting a while?
How many miles has she actually ridden it?
IOW, is she experienced enough to shift into the proper gear for a given speed?

Just wanted to give you guys an update on this and maybe a supplemental question.

I finally made the 4 hour trip to Maryland to work on the sad Savage. I rode the bike just to confirm that every thing worked fine except for running at low speed. I decided to take the long route to carburetor removal so, off with the seat, the tank, the side covers, the battery, the battery box and then the carburetor, phew. Actually it wasn't that arduous. The carburetor came apart and it was disappointingly very clean. Nevertheless I took it right down to its jets and blew everything through. I got it back together and took it for a drive. Sadly the performance was exactly the same that is to say the engine would not run at 25 mph in second gear.
Just for fun I checked that the idle mixture screw was set at two turns out (it was) and unwound it another full turn, the engine ran better. I stopped and unwound another turn and the engine ran much better. After some fine tuning and testing (by running the bike at 25 mph in second gear) I ended up at 4 1/2 turns out and the little thumper running like a champion.
Now I know that the conventional wisdom is that much past 3 turns indicates you should fit a bigger pilot jet but nothing has changed in the last year so I am reluctant to mess with it without knowing the reason why.
Of course it wasn't until I got home again that I thought that if the boot between the carburetor and the engine had developed a pinhole leak that could exactly explain the symptoms and the "cure". Has anyone had that happen to them?

Oh and by the way, those who thought or said that maybe an inexperienced rider might be "lugging" the engine here is a picture of her with her day bike. 110 pounds of girly girl on a 940 pound HD keeping the mean streets safe.

https://photos.google.com/album/AF1QipO6uXY82F1DPgAyZvs-joW2mSSy0PVvM2TQmUSr

Thanks for all your help and interest guys

DavidP

Don’t forget that the jets themselves are not the only parts of the carb that can clog.  There are numerous passageways inside the carb body and most have to do with the pilot system.  From the intake side of the carb, from the choke, the TEV and from there to the engine side of the carb.  They all must be clear of any grit/sand and free flowing.  They are tiny and fuel or air movement through them is essential to good carb function.  A carb tool (tiny wires) is very handy for cleaning them.

I'd place a bit of clear RTV over the fuel mix screw to prevent it from falling out.