Morris Minor Owners Club

Hi ll,

The 'proper' 1098 engine is now safely installed in SHY.... and runs beautifully.... eventually !

No matter what battery I put on, the car is a pig to turn over when she's cold.

Even with an enormous battery off my Toyota Hilux (which has two) AND jump leads from the Toyota, the starter motor turns 2 or 3 times really slowly, the engine catches and everything stops. Then its 'click' 'click', so I rock the engine in second gear and try again.... same result. Usually by the 3rd or 4th time she'll fire up and run really well.

If you stop then try and re-start within 1/2 and hour all is well but if she cools down too much you're back to square one

Have I left an earth off ? Is something not connected properly ?

quickest way to check is to connect a jump lead to the earth side of battery and then to the block (near started if you can) and see if engine turns over faster. If it does check and clean all the earths.

My old golf gti needed to have the connection to the starter motor cleaned every 2-3 months as it suddenly turned over slowly.. even with vaseline on the conections

Did the previous engine turn over freely?
Is it a reconditioned/rebuilt engine now?
Does it turn readily by starting handle?

Check the following...when you have tried to start is the CHOKE
cable very hot? This happens if you have not correctly earthed
the engine to the chassis. Otherwise in view of the fact that
you have supplied adequate battery power you could try another
starter motor. Use the starting handle to see if it starts easily
when using it as opposed to using the starter. DO NOT GRIP
THE HANDLE WITH YOUR THUMB ON ONE SIDE AND YOUR
FINGERS ON THE OTHER...have them ALL on the same side.

I had a problem on an engine a bit like this. The clue with mine was the cloud of steam when it did fire up. There was a head gasket problem which allowed water to seep into one cylinder when engine was stopped. Leaving it for a while let enough build up to increase the compression so much it struggled to turn over until it had blown enough water out.

I'm not saying it is this, a bad battery or earth connection is much more likely, but if these are OK it's worth a check.

I've also come cross a problem with a duff starter (brothers mini) where part of the windings shorted. This meant it took loads of current, but had no go. The sysmptoms were of a bad battery or bad earth, but I only twigged when I checked the battery voltage actually on the terminals of the battery and it dropped there too. Oh, and he did shell out for a new battery before I twigged!

All sorted. The starter motor wash bust... drawing loads of current to turn about half a turn then stopping. Swapped it with my handy 'spare' one... all happy ;)

Jim,

It's a shame I didn't see your post before. I had the same symptoms a few years back and it was a worn out starter. The clues are 1) turns and starts fine on the handle and 2) a fresh / recharged battery doesn't make much difference.