I'll chime in here........Hopefully after you and your buddy will find out you're low on compression. If that's the case you've got some engine rebuilding ahead of you. From my experience these motors are pretty bullet proof unless they've run out of oil and scored the piston/cylinder. I've worked on a quite a few of these 'Scoots and have had two that have had problems starting similar to what your experiencing. The fuel pump seems fine when you take it apart and even switch it out with a working one but it still will not start. Bite the bullet and buy a new fuel pump. They're around $80 bucks new. How old are these 'Scoots now? At least 25 years old. That right there is a lot of time. Just think of how much crud has built up and collected and gone through the fuel pump in that time. These motors do not have a lot of compression to drive the pump. These sleds are very tempermental when it comes to fuel delivery and with todays fuel you really need to keep after it to get these sleds running right.