Xj650 won’t fire up just cranks

Hey kinda new to working on bikes and trying to learn. I’m a Yamaha outboard mechanic. I have a 83 xj650 that I got from a kid cheap been sitting a few months he claims... I got it so it sparks on all 4 cylinders ,compression is 130 across and I’ve cleaned the carbs when I took them apart they were
Not dirty but when trying to start it was not passing fuel through.. I’ve done lots of carbs with work and I cleaned these with ultrasonic cleaner when all apart but I’m still having same issue with it all back together. It will crank and crank but not fire up then when I check plugs there dry!! Why isn’t fuel passing through? Turn petcock on and crack drain screws and carbs are getting fuel just not passing through to motor to fire? Also
Never messed with carbs that have slide diagrams but they all looked good when I put back and I noticed petcock is one without a vacuum which I’ve read should be fine on these bikes.. any idea of direction to go now would help thanks guys

 

Floats too high.....
Clogged jets....
Clogged enricher system.....
Weak battery......
Bad electricals.....

What exactly did you do to "clean the carburetors"

 

Welcome ..go to upper right corner of page click on xj4ever ..go to information overload hour and read.... The Church of Clean. because carbs are 30 plus years old and you do not know what P.O. did or did not do. One big item that is overlooked is to properly clean carbs is full tear down and soak , so ALL rubber seals and O rings need to be REPLACED , the butterfly seals 2 per carb need to be removed and replaced with new seals if not vacuum leaks will result . New seals can be purchased from xj4ever...You will NOT find these on eBay. If you have soaked carbs with these seals still installed it will the seals to perish and leak. To remove you have to separate carb bodies from rails this is "breaking the rack" , pull the butterfly plate by removing the 2 small screws , remove 10mm nut on one side and the E clip on other and slide shaft out this exposes the seals on both sides. From the sounds of your issue your fuel enrichment (choke) is plugged up and your main jet circuit is plugged and as Hogfiddles stated your float level is off . Good luck

 

I didn’t break rack but completely took apart and soaked in dip tank and then ultrasonic cleaner I clean a lot of carbs at work but there yamaha outboards not to much different.. is here a vacuum issue I’m missing? I see people talk about the vacuum line to the petcock I don’t have one on mine just one fuel line from petcock to carbs?? Is that ok?

 

The vacuum line goes from carb boot nipple usually #3 carb to the petcock , the petcock is put to the ON position , if you put it in PRI this will flow without requiring vacuum ...assuming that you still have OEM petcock . Many folks put after market petcocks in and don't use vacuum at all( I prefer the stock as this way you do not forget to turn off fuel = crankcase full of fuel = stuck float or needle and seat not fully sealing )

 

Ya I thinks it’s aftermarket no vacuum line on petcock

 

but you know that they are....

You need to go to Church.
http://xjbikes.com/forums/threads/in-the-church-of-clean.14692/

 

Fwiw---I do offer carb rebuild services if you need.....

 

One other item not asked are you running PODS or stock airbox? PODS are a waste of time and require jetting experimenting ...CV carbs do not function as designed with them.

 

Even with pods, it should at least fire up, and the plugs should indicate the presence of fuel

 

The second is not possible without doing the first.
The soaking killed the throttle shaft seals, but as Hogfiddles said, it should at least try to fire if all the jets and passages are clean.

 

Did you bench sync the carbs? Could be the butterfly’s are completely closed.

 

Yes i bench synced them I’m going to go back through carbs and see if I missed something but I’m pretty good with carbs been doing then years.. I could understand if one or 2 were messing up but For all 4 to not be passing fuel through I feel something else is up just didn’t know if there was a vacuum missing or the aftermarket petcock would affect it.. just for all not to be getting fuel I feel something is missing or not
Doing its job

 

Pay special attention to the pilot jet, pilot system passages, and the enrichment (choke) system. My bet is they are clogged up. Or, you could just send the carbs to Hogfiddles and get them back perfect. By the way, can you get it to fire with starter fluid?

 

Haven’t tried started fluid but went I sprayed carb cleaner to try and get a quick fire it pops and kinda backfires

 

Try starter fluid just to see if it will run a little. The take the carbs off and fully clean them. See the Church of Clean referenced above. Take it from personal experience, there are no short cuts and these carbs/bikes aren’t like outboards. Plus, these carbs are 35+ years old.

 

Will do

 

Oh yes there are. It just happens that none of them lead to the correct destination.

 

And the shortcuts always take longer......

 

Well tried starting fluid just to see if it would fire up for a second before I take carbs back off and nope! Just pops and backfires don’t actually start..! So not sure what’s going on

 

Pull the carbs and throughly clean them according to the Church of Clean. And refer to Hogfiddle’s and K-Moe’s comments above. I can personally vouch for their accuracy. You can do it right the second time or be hard headed like me and do it several more times.

 

Hey, verify for us which wire leads go to which plugs.... wondering if you have leads mixed up

 

1,4 on coil and 2 and 3 on other coil

 

What order should they go left to right

 

Sitting on bike, 1 to your left knee; 4 to your right knee.

Now which coil is 1/4 coming from, and which is 2/3 coming from

 

Coil to my left knee goes from 4 then to 1 then coil to the right goes 2 then 3

 

Update update after some research I reliazed my coils were plugged up backwards orange to gray and they to orange after I switched the plugs and tried starting fluid bike started right up!!

 

Doggies! Hogfiddles is good!

 

Well
Probally still not getting fuel lol but it did fire right up when I switched coil plugs then shot up to about 12k before I turned it off lol

Don’t think firing order has anything to do with fuel delivery on these

 

Is this right?