Thanks to vroom1776's excellent play-by-play on valve adjustments, I just finished the first one on my Savage since I bought it back in February.

Before jumping in though, I did yank one of the cover bolts and headed to the hardware store and bought 4 replacement bolts so I won't ever have to deal with the stripping/shearing issue on the OEM Suzuki crap bolts.  But I've been making a practice of every time a remove a fastener, I head to the hardware store and automatically replace any bolt I remove so I know I have good stuff to deal with.  Nothing like a preemptory strike to stave off headaches!!!

After 10,729 miles (+6000 or so put on by me), I thought I'd better check things out.  I discovered they were on the tight side, a very tight .003, maybe even a bit tighter than that.

I elected to loosen them up and go with a happy medium of a .004, and that just to the loose side.  The bike just purrs like a kitten now, and seems to be a bit freer in its running after a test ride.

I do think I'll need to go back in a visit the decompression solenoid, as I'm not getting much of a click now when I fire the bike up.  I figure it's a bit on the sloppy side now since adjusting the valves, so a little snugging of the cable will probably help that I would think.

I can vouch for the necessity of a 10mm offset wrench, particularly for the intake valves.  That is one TIGHT fit!  However, I had my old valve adjustment tools from when I had my GZ250, and they worked flawlessly on the exhaust valves as there is sufficient room for the little socket thing with the screwdriver bit that drops down the center of it.

I made do on the intake valves with a standard 10mm, but you can bet I will be heading to Sears to pick up both a 10mm offset and a 17mm offset for the flywheel, as you really have to hold back on that socket wrench to hit your alignment marks.

However, all in all, vroom1776's commentary on valve adjustments are well worth your time.  I didn't even break open my Clymer's manual, but then again, adjusting the valves on the Savage is identical to adjusting the GZ250, save for the decompression solenoid, which the GZ does not have.

Thanks vroom1776!!!

Went back out this evening and reset the engine on TDC/Compression and adjusted the decompression cable.  It was just a tad out and all is well there now.