We left off with the battery not fitting the box. When I looked at alternatives they were all the same size so it looked like the box had taken a hit. I had the hardest job putting it in and I really didn't want to do that again but eventually I gave in and pulled it. On the bench it was clear that it was distorted and with some fine tuning I got the battery to fit. So the battery came out and the box went into the frame with just as much nausea as the first time.
I primed the carburetor and fired it up, NOTHING. Then purely by chance I found that the starter is disabled unless the clutch is pulled in. (How things have changed in the 40 years since I rode a bike). Attempt number two and incredibly the engine fired right up.
I live on a private road so it seemed pretty safe to take it on a shake down run even without tags, a license, helmet or insurance and was that ever sweet. I thought that it was a little noisy and but chance the previous owner turned up and she thought so too. Investigation revealed that I had not bolted up the header flange right and with that done the engine became much more bearable although now I can hear the sounds of loose tappets. That's OK though as after a few hours I will re-torque the head and re-adjust the valve clearances. But for now I think there will be a moratorium on blogging because I am having way to much fun.
Two final points. I wanted to keep a log of costs, well just because I like to. The bike was $500 and the parts were $492. I did not charge the cost of the tools to the project because I will probably use them for other things anyway. So $992 and I have a pristine Suzuki Savage (and kudos to Lee for looking after it so well). I also had hundreds of $$ worth of fun in fixing this thing
Secondly this was supposed to be a winter project but just like a bottle of wine once I started I couldn't stop. So here we are at 12/4 and four months of winter left. Looks like I will have to use my fallback of annoying Susie. Wish me luck.
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