'81 XJ650 will turnover, but won't start. Any help would be great!

I've had this bike for a few years now and have been trying to start it since the weather is getting warmer. It sat during the winter, so I replaced the battery. It will turnover, but doesn't want to start. I've tried choking it, starting fluid, the basics, but not sure what the next best steps are.

I took it to a shop a little over a year and a half ago and I want to say they did a thorough cleaning of the carbs since it had been sitting for three years before I bought it. The last time it ran was in early October of this year. There was a time I was driving it during this time where it started sputtering on me and eventually just shut off, but still had lights and everything, but that was it. Tried to start it the next day and it fired right up, which was the last time it ran. I replaced the petcock since it was leaking pretty bad, and chalked it up to the valve not working correctly and possibly flooding the engine.

I am thinking it's an electrical issue, I tested the spark plugs and I'm not getting anything from any of them even though they are all clean and relatively new. I was also recently painting the headlight casing this winter and had to take the headlight off to paint it. I know that there is a whole mess of wires underneath, but I marked them all and tried to hook them up to how they originally were, there is a possibility that I hooked something up wrong there. Does the wiring for the coil, killswitch, etc run through behind the headlight? Or is it possible it's something entirely differet?

Not quite sure what next steps to take, but any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

Take a multimeter and hook it up to the battery terminals.
Note the voltage with the ignition on, and then again while pressing the starter button.
If it drops below 10 volts, then the problem is the battery. Even new batteries can be faulty, and that's becoming more common as virgin lead gets to be more expensive.

 

I recently had the same problem on my 82 Seca 650 and the guys on this forum helped me figure it out. It turned out I had a faulty kickstand relay. If the kickstand relay is faulty you will not get a spark, however, you can bypass it by disconnecting the black wire with white stripe at the TCI unit. Good luck.

 

The 1981's don't have sidestand switches, or sidestand relays.