After 8 years… she’s alive!

Well, this is an exciting one, mainly because I didn’t think I’d be saying this at this point, but she’s alive! Perhaps a little premature to be completely on the safe side, but still this is a very good sign it seems.

So my plans for this visit was mainly to make a start on cleaning the interior, mainly with the mould growing on the steering wheel and gear knob (these are both natural leather, and it seems all the time spent sitting, has become a bit of a breeding ground for some mould living in the fibres).

Until I was sitting in the drivers seat, the day was really nice and dry and I started thinking to myself… what would really happen if I just tried to start it?

My brother initially told me it shouldn’t take too much to get it back running again, as it was perfectly fine when it was last driven. I had a good feeling so far leading up to this point too. Obviously I was worried in case of making the situation worse, but the curiosity started oozing more and more.

So I thought… let’s try and start it. I already had 5 litres of fresh fuel with me (I had planned to store this for a future date when I would need it). The only issue was I didn’t have a battery, so I needed some help with a jump pack…

Well there you have it. The first time this engine has started in 8 years after being sat on a driveway in the elements. I was absolutely amazed it started as well as it did. Right now, you can imagine the smile on my face.

At this point, I was buzzing. I could have left this engine ticking over all day long. As you can see, I knew full well to not just go pedal happy and start revving the absolute crap out of the engine. I was happy enough to let it sit there, idle, warming itself up (a bit like an F1 car in the garage inside an intensive care unit).

So after a while I turned it off, full of confidence… there’s an actual probability that this car will be running on the road soon now. So much excitement.

After that I spent the rest of the time I was there making use of tidying things and cleaning up a bit of the interior.

Before I left, I couldn’t help but give it another little run, mainly because I already missed hearing the sound of the boxer rumble…