My friend has a Chinese 50cc scooter "VIP Future Champion" that won't start. He let the battery run down when it was still operable, over a year ago, and when he finally replaced the battery, it wouldn't start with the electric starter or the kick start. There are at least several things wrong with it, probably all stemming from storing it outside unused for a long period.
There's no continuity through the electric starter button when it's pressed. Shorting across the terminals that go to the button does not make the starter operate either. However, I'm guessing this is just a matter of chewed or rusted wires, since running a wire from the positive battery terminal straight to the starter motor does make it turn over, but it still doesn't ignite and run.
There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the ignition system. I was able to produce a spark from the end of the spark plug wire to the chassis, and the ground seems good everywhere.
There are a couple disconnected hoses that seem to be intake related, but with no obvious places to attach them. One was full of mess that looked like some sort of insect had tried to build a nest inside. I don't have pictures at the moment but I could probably take some tomorrow/soon.
Oh, and in case it's not obvious, we did put new fuel in it.
At this point, my biggest problem is that I'm not at all familiar with scooters and don't know what to try or where to look for problems. I searched online but couldn't find anything similar to a Haynes manual for it, or any resources with good pictures and/or disassembly/repair instructions to know what I'm looking at and what I'm doing. Can anyone suggest where we should start looking for a solution?