Posted by Witch Doctor on February 04, 2000 at 04:03:42:
In Reply to: Valve clearance, performance, and QC posted by Jim on February 03, 2000 at 06:46:50:
Valve clearance is .005" for both intake AND exhaust. Crooked rear wheel is fairly common, and just FYI, don't trust the index marks on the swingarm. Check the valves as per the manual mileage figures unless you hear them chattering. As far as the sloppy welds go, it's a Japanese bike that is still actually made in Japan (instead of Ohio, like Honda's big bikes are). Sloppy welds, bad alloys, flawed castings, other related problems I've seen posted on this site are going to be par for the course. And, I agree, Suzuki QC sucks. Within the first month of owning my 98 model Savage, I was ready to ship it to the junk yard. Now that I've had it two years (which will actually be on February 5th), I've got most of the bugs out of it. Now, if only someone made a usable replacement for the cheap factory shocks.
Have fun, good luck, the model improves with aging.
-WD