Hello,

I'm new to the forum so please forgive me if I'm in the wrong category.

Over the last week, I undertook the job of custom painting the tank and fenders on my 2000 Harley 1200 XLC. This involved removing the seat, battery, tank, carburetor air filter, rear taillights and brake light, as well as both fenders. I made the assumption this was all easily accessable and well within my meager mechanical abilities. When I finally finished and got the bike 100% back together I ended up with one spare Phillips head bolt and nut (the only one I forgot to label while taking the bike apart, go figure). But I tried to fire up the bike anyway.
The bike turns over, but will not start. I attempted two or three times to start figuring that it needed to get fuel back through the lines, and it fired up once for about .03 seconds, over reved like and SOB, and died again.
At this point I figured I may have flooded the engine so I popped out the spark plugs (they were definitely wet), and left it all to dry for a couple hours.
When I got the bike back together, and tried again it continued to turn over, but but hasn't fired up since.

What I've tried:
-I've checked the spark plugs by sparking them, they spark blue, but I'm not sure the sparks qualify as "fat".
-I've checked for compression at the spark plugs, there's definitely air moving and compression forming.
-I've charged the battery and triple checked battery connections.
-I've taken the seat, tank, and battery off again to make sure all fuel connections were solid, they were.
-I've checked the coil to see if anything got pinched when installing the tank, it's fine.
-I've checked all of my electrical connections to the rear fender just in case, they're fine.

Google and I are running out of ideas...
I know I'm getting fuel to my carburetor, I know I'm getting compression, and I know that I am getting spark (enough to shock the $#!+ out of me at least).

The only thing I can think of is that one stupid extra bolt (still unidentified), and maybe one of my spark plug cables (which is what shocked me) which has pulled up from the spark plug cap by ~1mm to expose a tiny bit of metal.

Any ideas?

Problem Resolved:
While tinkering with it some more, I discovered that the carburetor had become dislodged from its glove at some point. So even though there was fuel in the lines and fuel in the carb, that's as far as the fuel was going.

Popped it back into the glove, put it all back together, again, and it fired right up! Thank you so much for the help!

 

Do all the lights and brake lights work? Have you inspected for any blown fuses? Did you drain tank and refill with new fuel? Could it be contaminated with water? Check for water at bottom of tank and drain fuel bowl.

 

All lights and turn signals work.
I have drained the tank and refilled with fresh fuel. There's definitely no water contamination in the tank.

I'm having trouble locating my fuse box though. The manual indicates it should be under the seat (it's not). I've also checked behind the left side panel, and while there're wire connections there, I don't see a fuse box.
Could a blown fuse possibly cause this problem?

 

You have what appears to be spark and appears to be getting fuel. So that is why I wanted you to check lights hoping you may see a problem and trace it to a fuse. Sure you have coil wires on correct plugs. Most OEM wire make it impossible to switch. I will look up were your fuse box is. Do you have a volt ohm meter to check across the little probe points of the fuses to check them rather then pulling them?

 

I never unplugged any of the coil wires, my only contact with the coil has been to avoid jostling when removing the tank, and testing the spark plugs. And I can't possibly have mixed it up at the plug, the wires aren't long enough to cross.

Thank you for the image, that was hugely helpful in trackin down the fuse box. I pulled each fuse gently, but all of them "look" to be in good shape. Is it possible for a fuse to die without breaking the internal wire? I don't have an ohm meter, so I have no other means of testing than visual.

 

Problem Resolved:
While tinkering with it some more, I discovered that the carburetor had become dislodged from its glove at some point. So even though there was fuel in the lines and fuel in the carb, that's as far as the fuel was going.

Popped it back into the glove, put it all back together, again, and it fired right up! Thank you so much for the help!

 

Too cool. That's what I work for on here..