A Big Day

I always think that it is a great day when I turn the ratchet handle from undo to tighten because that generally means that the job is now heading in the right direction and Thursday turned out to be a great day.
My cheapo honing tool worked out real well and within a few minutes all the glaze was busted and the cylinder nicely scored. The tool also survived so if anyone wants to borrow it, you are welcome. The rings slipped on the piston and the piston slipped easily into the cylinder. It was kind of a faff keeping the timing chain in the right place and I ended up using some string which wasn't entirely successful. I was also reminded for the umptenth time that I do not know better than the manual which clearly states to insert only the rear chain guide. I of course inserted both guides only to find that the front one has to be inserted after the cylinder is on as it locates from the top. After a small temper tantrum which sent Susie and the dogs heading for the fallout shelter I took it all apart again. This time armed with a portion of common sense I ended up with this.

You can see the timing chain tied down to stop it slithering back into the crankcase as well as the rear guide in place and the front guide (which has just been lowered in from the top). As the rocker arms are fixed to the head cover fitting the cylinder head was a no brainer or it should have been. I have every size and combination of sockets known to man except, apparently, a 14mm with a 1/2 inch drive and that was the one I needed to torque the head down. As a slight aside, back in the day, when men were men (and so unfortunately were some of the women) engines were made from cast iron and we scorned the use of a torque wrench. These days engines are made from aluminium which has a tensile strength of play dough and so it was shopping for me. Anyway I walked into Lowes found the part and was back in the parking lot in minutes. I was so surprised and delighted I took a celebratory selfie, lucky you.

Joking apart the torque wrench is an absolute must although I got so scared pulling the head down I had to stop just to test the wrench on a few random bolts. Eventually the head was held down to the required 24 foot pounds and nothing got stripped. Then a generous smear of sealant around the oil plug (which is the cause of the infamous Savage weep) and on with the head cover and rockers. I thought that I may as well adjust the tappets on the bench and then put on the crankcase covers. So at the end of a long but satisfying day I ended up with,

I am taking today off mainly because I am feeling a touch weary but also because the next session will be to put the engine in the frame and I need all my faculties intact. I also need to work out how to get the Savage upright and secure so that as the engine goes in I don't end up faced with a choice of saving the engine or the frame as it all topples over. I shall ponder on that tomorrow.

Lesson Learned

The moral of this story is that if your ducks are all lined up in a row the DMV can be a remarkably efficient place. Yes indeed I finally got all my paperwork in exactly the order that the DMV wanted and within minutes I had a title and they had $85 of my hard earned. I guess that the DMV is a huge revenue source for Virginia.


Actually it's been a good day. Lee turned up with the missing keys and the USPS turned up with the honing tool and some engine assembly lube. I didn't do any work today as I was busy with some other stuff but tomorrow I see no reason to have this engine completely built by close of play. In fact I am so confident that I shall order a new battery now so that I am not held up next week.


Watch this space.

Turning Point

Finally, I have the piston and the new rocker arms. I am still waiting on the honing tool (curse you Amazon) so there is not much to do. Just because I could I fitted the rockers and I suddenly realized that I was putting things together and no longer pulling them apart.


I also worked out the deal with the cylinder head nuts. I was looking for 4 identical nuts and not finding them so when I was collecting the parts I had ordered I decided to get a new set. When the guy brought them up on his computer it was clear that 3 are dome heads and one is a regular nut and I knew I had that combination so I passed on them. Now I find that I only have 3 of the 4 copper washers so I probably did screw myself. Oh well it's all good, I'm sure that I can find one locally. For now I am just pleased to be tightening things up.

A short break

Well I think I am going to have to take a short break here. It's not that I want to but I am awaiting parts, partially because of my poor logistics skills and partly because Amazon are trying to prove a point. After I discovered that the local engine shop was no more I decided that I could quite easily hone the cylinder myself. Locally the tool is $32 but Amazon has one for $12 and being financially conservative tight I went for the Amazon option, figuring if it is the usual Chinese crap, well it will only be used once anyway. Now as usual Amazon try to persuade me to pay for 2 day shipping and as always I click on the free stuff. So 4 days after I post (and pay for) my order they send me a text to say it has shipped. 4 days to pick an order! Oh dear looks like this is turning into a rant, let's move on.

One of the things I have discovered about the Savage is that the top end lubrication is not that good, in fact the owners club suggests that you should not let the engine idle when the machine is on the side stand. The owners manual makes a big deal of setting the idle at 1000 rpm but doesn't explain why. (The owners club says that this is to keep the oil pump running fast enough). This is bourne out by my experience that when it is run low on oil the top end is trashed. The cam lobes have survived but the rocker arms are toast and that I don't mind as they can be replaced. However the cam sits directly on the aluminium head so if it melts, the head and head cover are screwed. The manual glibly states that if the cam bearing surfaces are out of spec, the head and associated parts should be replaced. Just for fun I looked up the price of a new head and it is an eye watering $740. It goes without saying that I have polished mine up and I am optimistically calling the score marks "oil retaining grooves". Now when I was a boy (which admittedly was many, many decades ago) bearing surfaces would have a phosphor bronze shell and when the wore thin they could be winkled out and replaced for pennies. It is hard to imagine some Japanese engineer thinking that this is a good idea. Does anyone? Enquiring minds want to know. Oops it looks like I am back into rant mode, moving on.

Lots of good news. In the latest batch of parts were several pieces of bright work bearing the grime of 5 years of storage. In a quiet moment I cleaned then with some polish and they came up like new so I am confident that this nearly 20 year old machine is going to look like new when it is all done. Also, apparently some years ago the dealer cross threaded the inspection plate on the left side cover. I tried to remove it but even with a pneumatic impact screwdriver it is on for life but the good news is that I found one on eBay for $10 so high five me. Also in the good news department is the fun I am having in working out how this all goes together. Having not taken it apart it can be a challenge but also a high when WTF! turns into "oh that is how you go".

Finally Gerry and Lee if you are reading this (and I know you are) the Savage is still not mine. The wretched DMV are  not playing nice and even tears and Lord's name taking of in vane won't help. I think that we will will all have to go together with the Savage and a Supreme Court Justice to notarize the transfer. To this end I have booked my drinking pal His Honor Justice Antonin Scalia, or Dog Breath as he like me to call him, to attend the DMV next week. They will not defeat me.

More progress

I am now waiting for parts to arrive so to pass the time I thought I would clean the carburettor. I was hoping to make it last the morning but it was a 30 minute job and as it happened the thing was pretty clean anyway. Then Lee turned up with all the missing parts and a bonus bag for the front forks. Later in the day I polished up the chrome work that just arrived and it came up like new so although I didn't acheive much it feels like a good day.

One very clean carburettor.

I like these specialist forum groups and when I restored the golf cart I picked up a lot of useful information. It turns out that there is a forum just for the Savage so I joined, read a lot of good stuff, including how to cure the "Savage oil weep" and then asked the question as to what damage would occur if the engine was run low on oil. Two guys predicted that the rocker arms would be destroyed and now I have them, they really are.




It is kind of hard to see but those cam lobes should be convex and they ae worn to concave.

All in all it is kind of good news as the parts are fairly cheap $62 each and it is good to find something wrong. Of course if I am wrong about the bottom end being good then the engine will be back in the frame, started up and pulled right out again to my deep shame.


So I ordered the parts locally today including a piston and rings (and by the way am I alone in thinking the piston should come with a wrist pin and circlips? It doesn't). The spend was $285.49 which makes a running total of $398.97.


I know that there will be some other expenses and I am already thinking of a battery and a rear tire but I quietly confident that I can bring this project home for less than $1000. We will see.

Onwards and Upwards

Monday turned out to be the usual frustration. Fisher's did not carry a spring compressor (I know really) and when I asked about honing the cylinder they told me that the engine shop closed years ago! NAPA were polite but useless so once again I was back at Advance Autos. They only had a crappy Chinese compressor for $20 so I bought it along with some lapping sticks and paste. The compressor of course didn't work and I ended up removing the fork on the end and taping it to a C clamp. If you ever see one of these run, don't walk.

On the much more positive side I got the valves out and cleaned them up nicely. I washed the head and cylinder with kerosene and everything now looks good.

I found a honing tool on Amazon for $12 and as they are $32 in town that is a bargain. I also ordered a complete gasket set which is on its way. Talking of gaskets it looks like Suzuki stick them on with mastic. I know this because I spent the better half of the afternoon trying to peel them off while not scratching the super soft aluminum.


I'm going to keep account of the money put into this project just because I can. So far we have $50.49 in tools and stuff and $62.99 for gaskets and the honing tool, so a grand total of $113.48.

Why I hate shopping

No matter what else might need work I am, at the very least, going to need to replace the piston rings, hone the cylinder, decoke the head and lap the valves. In addition and only if I am feeling particularly adventurous I will polish the ports. So just to have something to do on a Friday night I decided to scrape the carbon off the piston. As soon as I started I found some very strange dings around the crown of the piston. They are clearly not valve damage but they are enough for me to scrap the piston which is no big deal as at $70 it is probably a good investment anyway.

Little knicks around the crown

I don't know why I would be bothered to remove the old rings from this now scrap piston but I did and to my surprise the oil control ring fell apart. It's been a long time since I got this deep into a motorcycle engine but I am sure that this ring should be one piece not three. I wonder if this is the source of the strange noise.




We have in town three auto stores and so I was confident that I would find a small valve lifter, a lapping stick and some valve grinding paste. Well you would think wouldn't you? NAPA was like the land of the living dead with the two octogenarians behind the counter frozen in time. Advance were employing GED failures who hadn't a clue what I was talking about and I arrived at Fisher's at 12.04 and can you guess what time they close on a Saturday. As a result I had a despondent afternoon just dicking around. I made a half hearted attempt to clean the cylinder head but to be honest I wasn't feeling the magic.

Anyway, enough whining, first thing Monday morning I shall have another go at NAPA.