Is it the battery. Started before. What am I missing?

I took the bike out a day ago for a 9min ride and it was fine
Checked fuel is good. I have new fuel and it flows.
Spark plugs work.
I hear it spinning and trying to crank.
Battery at Fully charged sits at 13.2v
Turn on ignition but don't start 12.4v
Start idle and measure -didn’t start
Battery dropped to 12.47 after a couple of no starts.

So what should I do next?

 

Check your fuse box. Original one causes electrical problems with weak clips.

 

Battery is marginal I think
Try boosting it if it starts it might work for you

 

I'll give these a try. Tomorrow and go from there. Thanks folks

 

tried boosting and it still didn't start. fuse box looked fine too; I'm kind of stumped.

 

Can you explain what you mean?

 

i hear the starter and engine trying to go like a dying growl.

 

pretty much sounds like

 

Is this a video of your bike? Sounds like it cranks normally, fires briefly, then cranks some more. "Dying growl" is a good description of a starter clutch going out, but there's nothing wrong with the starter in the video.

 

yea it's mine. just keeps cranking.

 

Probably fuel related since it did fire a little bit. But still the first and easiest test is to see if you have spark while it is cranking. As they guys already mentioned above, electrical connections throughout the bike or weak battery can pull voltage down where the TCI won't work. Remove one plug at a time and look for spark while cranking. Check a plug from both coils (1&4 and 2&3). If you have good spark, then you can start chasing fuel issues.

Everything sounds pretty normal on your video. I don't hear the growl you are describing.

 

It had weak spark and just replaced the plugs out. fired it up and it had a weak rumble then started. It may be the wires at plug boots? two of them have very few strands and they are dark. Went for a 20 min ride and came back. restarted it fine and just shrugged.

 

scratch that we're back to square one with no starts. sigh lol

 

What plugs did you put in?

I have clear tubes that I plug into the bowl drains to look at fuel in the carbs. I have the right screwdriver and the tubes in my saddlebags to troubleshoot on the road if need be. Its a quick sanity check to see if you have a problem feeding fuel into the carb bowls. I had some fuel related issues early on after bringing my XJ650 back to life.
Here is what the fuel level looks like when its good, flat level in the garage on center stand. I drew a line to show how in the middle of the carb, its near the 3mm below top of bowl position. This is not how you wet set but its a sanity check to verify your bowls have "about" the right amount of fuel in them.
did you set your petcock to Prime and try that? Is it a vaccum petcock (vacuum petcocks, have a line to one of the intake boots and the dial is ON/RES/PRI, Manual ones are ON/RES/OFF)

 

I found pics of when I was troubleshooting a clogging screen (the one under the float needle housing in the carb). Screen was WASY too fine a mesh and was flat and clogging. I ended up putting the original screens back in after cleaning them up. the pic with the low fuel level in the bowl was at the end of a short ride as that cylinder was not firing. then I took pics like 10 minutes apart to show how the bowl was slowly filling back up.
Bike is all good now.
This may not be your problem but eliminate the easy stuff first. Its good to know if your bowls are filled.

 

Are you using the starting enrichment? Have you cleaned the jets in the bowls? If the answers are Y and N, then take the carbs off and clean the starter jets.

 

Take the boots off the plug wires and trim 1/4 inch off.

 

problem is a lot simpler than i thought... when the handlebars were swapped the ground connection on the starter switch wasn't secured properly causing it to not start.