I am having troubles with my engine at the moment.

When I start my car on cold mornings the starter motor turns the engine over very very slowly like it has a dead battery, but eventually and not always after a long time, the engine spins over at a normal rate the car starts fine. When the engine is warm, the starter kicks over at a normal speed and the car starts fine. I have a webber45.

I am also having clutch problems. I think... When I release the clucth it make the car or more specifically the left front wheel shudder baddly.
I have changed the MC and the SC and adjusted the clucth to help. It is notchy going into first and second and also reverse.

1/ too much advance

2/ clutch plate is no good

If you have electronic ignition (eg a Pertronix ignitor, or a Pulsar dizzy) they fire on the 1st upstroke (unlike a Lucas points dizzy). Anything more than about 12° or so static advance and you will get this. It can also lead to broken starter pinions...
My car runs 20° static advance (yes, it needs it) so my solution was put a kill switch on the ignition. I spin the motor up with the starter then throw the switch on.

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DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.

Worth checking your battery, lead acid batteries produce less power the colder the ambient temp gets. If your battery is marginal but still starts the car OK in summer then it is likely to have problems in winter.

Pete

A dragging clutch will not help your starting issues.

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Too many cars, and too little time.

yes Kevin.... we know!

Yeap and your terminals.

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Yup, Thats why all the breakdown services are flat out on cold mornings jump starting cars

check your starter motor solenoid,thought i had a dud starter on tweety,swapped over,no dice,last thing i checked was solenoid,turned out to be knackered. just my 3 cents...cheers andy

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First you get the money,then you get the power,then you get the Mini.

the thing is that the starter does eventually kick over at normal speeds, and it could be 2 seconds after I try starting or 2 minutes of trying.. its unpredictable.

I think I will replace the solenoid and maybe to the brushes in the starter and basically make sure all the connections are good. The battery terminals are new anyway.

Though something I didn't mention before is that when it does get up to speed sometimes it feel like the starter is spinning but not connecting to the flywheel, just free spinning.

The bendix on the starter motor maybe sticking, although for it to work properly, it has to spin up fast.

This along with the problem you have described with your clutch suggests that your primary gear oil seal maybe leaking or the bushes in it are badly worn. Some of the oil is getting in to the bendix and holding dust from the clutch plate and jamming. The oil has gotton on to your clutch plate and causing it to shudder, however as simon has suggested above, it will need replacing.

Other causes for causes are stretched flywheel drive straps, flywheel / backing plate need machining, worn primary gear bushes (as above), bent clutch plate, bent crankshaft.

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I think you need to take it to someone who knows what they are looking at. Guessing at a problem can cause more frustrations for the owner. Start by getting the Battery and starter professionally tested. Might be cheaper in the long run.

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