bake3310

Hi all,
I bought my 7 in December of '98 when I was young, dumb, employed, and single.
Since then I have aged, gotten a bit smarter, stayed employed, got married and added three kids.
Some of those are the reasons that my 7 went into a barn in the fall of '09 and just came out 3 weeks ago. Actually, I was kind of evicted from the barn because the barn owner discovered that the car had become home to some mice. I admit that I was a very bad owner and should have taken care to get it out of the barn sooner, do much more to keep the mice out of it, and generally respect the car.
So after having it moved back to my place I had some work to do.
1. remove the mice nests from the obvious places (glove box, storage box with the tire iron, between the storage box and the Bose "trunk" space reducer system, under the center console, and on the air side of the air-box (which also came with 7 baby mice).
2. remove the old spark plugs
3. put some Marvel's Mystery Oil into the spark plug holes
4. turn and lube the engine by lifting the rear and rotating one of the rear tires
5. replace the gosh darn fuel filter
6. inspect the fuel pump and remove some of the OLD gas
7. finally add some fuel stabilizer and new fuel
8. change the oil and filter
9. replace the spark plugs
10. remove the seats (undamaged by the mice)
11. clean the carpet to reduce the foul smell
12. replace the belts
13. new battery. Nearly everything electrically works! Lights turn on, lights come up, indicators front and back work, brake lights work, fan turns on (turned it off quick because it sounds, and smells, like the mice were in there too). Radio, not so much. Pressed the ON button and all the lights on the dash died. Disconnected the battery, and looked for a bad fuse but couldn't find anything. Reconnected the battery and the dash was back. Haven't pressed the radio button again.

After all of that, it was time to start it.
First turn of the key and it cranked. At least the starter works! After about 5 seconds I gave it a break.
A short rest and then another crank. 5 more seconds and it fires up! There is soooo much blue smoke (probably helped along by the Mystery Oil), but I do remember the spring start after sitting all winter being a cloudy affair.

After running it for a bit and making sure that the coolant didn't go crazy, or that fluids poured onto the garage floor I figured it was time for a slow drive around the block.

The transmission shifted and reluctantly as ever (not as smooth as the BMW tranny that I've been used to) and the brakes growled as the 9 years of rust scrapped away. The one thing that I noticed that I didn't remember was a growling from the rear end. Of course, I have the spare, the spare cover, the rear carpet, and the Bose system removed so maybe this is normal? Hard to say.

So, now that it is running again it is time to take care of some other long overdue maintenance. Change the transmission fluid, the diff fluid, the coolant. Replace the brake fluid. Check why the radio killed the electrical. Replace the carpet (probably worth it while the dash is out).
Oh yeah, it has 51k miles of which about 25k were done by me. Repairs that I had to do in the past (before Barn): water pump, clutch, regular maintenance.

Well, that's my intro.

inviscid

Hell of a story, she look great for all that she's been through! Also good to hear that a majority of the major electrical wiring was spared by the mice. I look forward to seeing her come along and returned to her former glory