Need Help - XJ550 Seca - Wont Start - Make me a believer!

Hey guys, I cant get my legend to start - 83, Seca 550

Yes I am new to the forum world, and it hasnt been without countless hours saying I can do it myself without asking anyone. Well I came to a point now where I thought I would give it a shot because I cannot understand whats going on.

Quick Notes-
1983 Yamaha Seca XJ550
Located in Southwestern Ontario Canada
New Plugs
Compression 120
New Oil
Starter Working
Carbs taken apart and cleaned (by me)
Fuel Filter replaced - Fuel coming out of petcock under starter pressure
Spark is good,
Coils meter good,
.....what else am I missing

When I got the bike it struggled to start - always. but when it was warm/hot and shut off, a few minutes later it starts within a turn.

Fresh gas and all.After a long time sitting - and yes I drained the tank, cleaned the carbs, etc. it wont start.

 

You have to start to trouble shoot one thing at a time. Pull the plugs out of the cylinders and stick them in the spark plug boots. Turn the lights off or down and turn the bike over. Can you see spark on all the plugs? If yes, might want to get some starter fluid and see if spraying it in the air box without the filter will make the bike start or pop. Do not run the bike on just the starter fluid for long.

If you don't have spark, you will have to work on the electrical part of the plugs. The coil wires can bet cut just a little bit off of each end. This will clean up the ends enough to maybe get spark. Depending how the motorcycle was stored, it could need a lot of TLC on all the connectors on the bike. Take your time and go through all the connections with some dielectric grease and a little pic to get all the corrosion off the connector parts. Be careful, these are older bikes and the plastic connectors are no longer as soft as they used to be.

After that it could be the ignition swx, the kill swx, bad coils, bad coil wires, the connector wires from the wiring harness to the coils themselves. Best to take a look at what you can, document it here and let us know what you have tried and we can work from there. Good luck.

 

550 is a hard start very finicky to battery charge state. do a voltage drop test to see what the battery voltage drops to when cranking starter.
also if the bike sits for a few days set petcock to prime for 5 seconds. the fuel likes to evaporate from carbs.

do you use the choke /enrichment circuit to start bike? make sure the wells in the carb bowl are clear so the enrichment circuit will draw fuel up to start bike.

when you cleaned the carbs did you remove the mixture screws?

and you need to check the valve shim clearances.