Help; Getting no spark... (82 XJ550)

(preface: bike is heavily modded. some electrical has been deleted from the harness. i have no gauges, an aftermarket headlight, battery, and fuses have been converted to blade style.)

Finished rebuilding/syncing carbs, bike fires up and runs great. time to put the headlight/seat/tank back on and assemble it all after years of no riding and rebuilding...
headlight no go. i swapped the kickstand safety relay to the headlight relay spot. headlight relay is bad because headlight came on. starts once. i put the bike all together and had no spark.

i then disabled the kickstand switch by hooking the two wires together, putting the stand relay back in (and also trying to get spark with it out). tried making sure all safety's where disabled by disconnecting the black/white wire from the CDI. still nothing.

the starter relay and kickstand relay both click when i turn the kill switch and key to on. i tried kicking it into gear and back to neutral, still nothing. bike turns over but no spark on any of the 4 plugs. battery has a full 13+.
I can verify that i have fuel as the jetting is brand new and carbs have been cleaned many times over. + the bowls have fuel in them when i release the drains.

im at a loss here. any help/advice is much appreciated. thanks.

 

The relays are not interchangeable. The headlight is supposed to come on after the bike starts and is then latched on by the headlight relay - you need a good headlight relay and charging system for that to happen.

That disables the safety circuit for ignition cutoff so if you don't have spark after that then something is amiss with the coils, pickups, TCI, or wiring. I would suggest checking the resistance of the ignition coils and pickups as outlined in the FSM.

Also, battery voltage is important to deliver enough voltage to the coils and should not drop below 10 volts when cranking.

 

thanks for the suggestions.

battery voltage is great, even tried it with a car battery to confirm. we didnt seem to get much at the coils, but the pickups both tested great. not seeming to get much on the "in" side of the TCI though. going to get a new TCI, relays and coils off of a parts bike this week and see if that makes a difference.
its so odd that this issue would start right as i was about to ride it again...

 

That's like saying you found your keys at the last place you looked.

 

it did start up and run great 2 minutes before i put the seat/filters on and tried to ride it.