Apollo DB36 Deluxe, Update 2

[Ski_rush]

For those of you who read my last thread, you saw that I had an issue with the engine cranking, but no spark. Well here's an official ride report...

psych...

I have no idea how the bike rides yet. The tires of this bike have never touched pavement; I'm explain below.

So, there I was, tearing into the bike, trying to test everything I could to figure out why it wouldn't spark. At the end of the day, the problem had nothing to do with anything I tested or replaced (CDI, coil, plug, etc). The culprit all along was a kill switch at the kickstand. I suspect that my kickstand was tweaked during shipping. The switch itself is a mechanical "plunger" type device. It has to be fully extended (i.e., out) to allow the bike to start (see pic below). I believe the switch or kickstand might have been slightly bent a little such that it would not extend all the way out to allow the engine to spark. So, when I put kickstand up and then tried to start the bike, it disengage all the way to allow the engine to spark. By chance, I wiggled it a little while cranking, and what do you know...spark.

Then, I unbolted the top bolt that mounts the switch to the frame and tilted the switch up, to allow the plunger to extend out. This allowed for spark and the engine fired right up like nothing happened. I spent a lot of time doing a lot of testing on the bike...just to find out it was something extremely silly like this. I ended up replacing the stock CDI, coil, plug, solenoid, etc and it still worked fine and starts right up.

The good news is that all that time and work was not totally lost because I learned things I never knew before, such as CDI's, volt meters, checking for spark, etc. I didn't know much about that before, but now I do.

Why haven't I taken the bike out? Well, here's why. I was minutes away from riding the bike for the first time. It was starting and running fine. The only thing left to do was mount the plastics. As is the case for other bikes, some of the plastics bolt to the tank. As I was installing one bolts on one side, it snapped in half. I asked my father-in-law to help me extract the bolt. He got it out just fine, but as he was trying to re-thread the hole, he ended up going too far and actually punctured a hole tank...yes, more ridiculousness. A freak'n hole in the tank...a gas spilling out freak'n hole in the tank. I was speechless, but couldn't be mad at him; I could tell he felt horrible.

Long story short, I ordered a new tank and it should arrive this weekend. I'm eager to get it installed and ride the bike. I haven't had the best luck so far, but what can I do?

In other news, I also didn't post for a while because I filed a dispute with my bank against Manny and his poor business practices. I didn't want to post anything that he could find and use against me. I tried to win one for the little guy and get even a tiny refund...for time lost and money spent, such as the new battery I had to buy. I just found out today from my bank that they ruled in favor of Manny. Yup, I lost the dispute. He's well protected by this policies...sort of like he's learned through trial and error how to screw people over. Anyway, the dispute is over, not much I can do about that either. I will post a dealer review soon and no, it wasn't a positive experience...big surprise.

Unfortunately, I cannot provide any sort of update on the quality of the bike or how it rides. I can report that the starting issue I had was due to a kill switch at the kickstand.

The bike is still pretty un-assembled. No tank, no plastics. Hopefully, that will change this weekend.