Hey there everybody
     I recently got a 1996 savage about 7k miles. very well taken care of I've put about 2k miles on it and i haven't had any problems. I'm very good with engines, I never have any problem doing anything from rebuilds to simple diagnosis... but I'm stumped. about 3 weeks ago I started doing some digging on this site for some common problems and saw the verglagen adjuster mod and said well that's pretty easy to figure out made my own of the same and it turned out very well. I then while I had the cover off I replaced the clutch and changed the oil. Everything went as smooth as could be I even went as far as new exhaust gasket, adjusted the valve lash to .004" after checking specs that stated between .003" .005". reassembled everything.... in the process I checked the plug and it was hand tight so i pulled it, its slightly dusted white so i replaced it and tightened properly. Started it up and it has a very loud tapping sound from the top left side of the engine i checked the decomp. assembly from beginning to end. That was not the problem. i checked valve lash that stayed so i tightened to to .003" and it still remained as a loud tap and it gets louder as it warms up. If anyone has any idea on what i need to check please tell me. This bike will be my fiancés birthday gift in a couple weeks and i want it in tip top shape.

Yes, I apologize top left side if I use stethoscope and work my way from bottom of crank case up the engine it gets louder. Where I gear it worse is on the left side in the cavity recessed area about an inch from the top of the engine and towards the front which feels to me like I may have been off on my valve adjustment. But I checked it again it didn't get much quieter so I'm confused.

I thought about that too so I checked. And I checked compression and it is good I think it may have just been a previous error

Not yet I will be double checking everything again here in a few.

After you adjusted the valves the 2nd time, I think you expressed that it got a little quieter.  Is that right?  If so, that would be where I would check again.  And sounds like you know this, but make sure you are TDC on the compression stroke.

So I've spent the couple hours checking everything I did again and I checked everything extra that was said and I can't figure it out. Tomorrow I'm going to tighten them just a hair more and see if it continues.

That’s it.  Mine was out of adjustment on the first Savage I owned.  It did the same thing.  The adjustment must be made with the bike TDC on the compression stroke.  The manual says the shaft should extend out 3-5mm from the solenoid.  I aim for 4mm using a small ruler.  I err to the 4-5mm extension as opposed to 3-4mm.  There is a whole post on this topic in the technical library.  I’ll see if I can post a link here.

http://suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1169356966

I dont know if it helps, but I had something similar happen to my bike - I had my mechanic replace the clutch and the clutch never felt right and the bike was making a loud tapping noise. I called the mechanic, he blamed the clutch on being non OEM, suggested replacing Baron springs with OEM, so I brought it back and he did - marginal improvement i clutch performance and the tapping continued.

I decided to do the valve adjustment, they were within spec when I checked, but I got the perfect. The tapping still continued.

So I decided to take a look at the clutch myself, turns out he put in the gear behind the clutch backwards, and the pin fell out, and the oil pump wasn't being engaged. I only put about 200 miles on the bike after he did the shoddy work, and when I drained the oil it was jet black, completely burnt. Ever since the bike keeps burning oil.

Check out the video I sent him when I discovered his screw up.

https://youtu.be/zx6pIK9G-7I