ok.

Things left to do:
Check oil again
Check coolant
Fix shifter
clean petcock filter
grease
top up break fluid
oil chain

facepalm

Or it could be that I forgot about the kickstand switch.

Fail #1!

Got the carbs back on yesterday. Complete lack of catching-turns over ok still.
Thoughts on possible problems:
1. Flooded: Adjust the floats. Didn't do this before, probably should have.
2. Spark: Test all three plugs for spark.
3. Compression: hopefully it's not this, since I have no clue where to go forward on this one.
4. Maybe I didn't get all of the gunk out of the carburetor channels.

Doug Douglas Motorcycles rocked me!
I was running the kid somewhere, doing a final soak of components in carburetor cleaner, and proceeded to toss me float needles in the mixture. Needless to say, the rubber parts crumbled like a very crumbly thing.
Luckily, Doug Douglas had 3 in stock!!

BTW, the Harley part did not fit.

Waiting for the one day.

Hopefully the parts will come in, everything will work, and I can ride the weekend after next. Still contemplating a replacement needle, one of mine looks a little damaged. I just need to make sure that I put that one on the #1 or #3 carb-then I can just pop the top off and drop in a new one.
Meanwhile, doing research. Here's the triumphrat post by MarkBartels on replacing out the instrument lights with LEDs. He uses: "(6) 74-xHP Wedge Base LED Bulb-White 74-WHP for the idiot lights & blinker indicators. (4) WLED-x5 LED Wide Angle LED bulbs-Warm White WLED-WW5 0.95 for the clocks."
Super Bright LEDs seems to sell the right ones.

Carbs out

Taking the carburetor assembly out not as easy as I would have hoped. Whoever supposedly "overhauled" the carbs didn't really seem to. I'm basing this on the fact that one of the needle jet holders had an extraordinary amount of baked on black stuff. Soaking in sea foam didn't dent it, although carb cleaner seems to do better, with multiple applications, I hope to get them cleaned up good. Especially because I don't know that I'll be able to find replacements. Turns out that it doesn't show up as a part number in the Triumph part catalog or bike bandit. I've ordered a holder for a 2003 harley sportster 883 that *seems* like it might fit. Pretty much changing out all the jets, needles, etc. since it's such a pain to get the carbs off. Ordering replacement stuff from Sudco if available, bike bandit for OEM parts if not, and the aforementioned jet holder from the local Harley place.
One last complaint-apparently, it takes as long to ship a Harley part from Wisconsin, as it does a float needle from England.

Ignition Coil Wires

Green is #1
Yellow is #2
Brown is #3
Red is always closest to you when removing.

Home!

Finally got the bike home yesterday afternoon. Used a uhaul trailer, which they said had wheel chocks on the phone, but did not. And denied they had said that it did. Screw it! After all the setbacks, I was making this happen. Strapped it down, and crossed my fingers-seems to have made it ok.
Discovered that I am, indeed getting spark-pulled the #3 plug, grounded it on the engine, turned it over and saw the spark, so yeah, I'm pretty certain. Next step was to check out the air box to make sure it was good. Only problem is, on these guys you have to pull the carbs to do so. Oh well, I had figured it was the gas drying out with the petcock on all along, so I might as well rebuild it anyway.
Here's the fun part-I called up one of our local Triumph dealers, turns out they don't make a rebuild kit. HUGE pain in the ass-now I have to look at the exploded diagram and order the parts individually. grrrrrr.
Also on the fun, discovered that the insert on the air box that holds the screw for the cover plate was cracked, so I'm going to need to epoxy that up.