Car takes long so start after sitting for a while

Do you think it could perhaps be the fuel filter that is clogged up? I am asking because the car has no problems when driving, no misfiring, and if I start the car within 2 hours of switching it off, it starts right up with no problems. The problem is that I struggle to start the car when it has been sitting for +/- 4 hours. If it has been sitting for 8 hrs or more, like overnight, it's very difficult to get it started. This morning I cranked the battery flat trying to get it started. It's a manual transmission so I tried to get it kick started. A friend of mine towed me so we could kick start my car. It still took so long, like not enough fuel was getting through perhaps. Eventually we stopped and I cranked again. With my battery charged back up I could now crank again. It started, then shut off, I tried again. It started, then shut off. A few more of those and I could eventually keep it from shutting off by keeping it on a light rev for about a minute. Then it idled and I drove to work with no problems. No misfiring. So now I go to my car every 2 hours while I'm at work so I can start and idle it for about 5 minutes so I don't have to struggle when I go home.

No murky milky presence in my oil, nor on the dipstick. No bubbles is my radiator expansion bottle. My radiator does not have a cap so I am unable to see in there. No misfiring, no wet spark plugs, no oil leaks, no overheating. So I am really struggling to understand how it could be the gasket. Do you think it could be with the fuel filter, pump or fuel pressure perhaps?

Hey there, thanks for the help. I played around and found the problem to be the crankshaft position sensor.

Hi there. I was actually mistaken. It was not the crankshaft positioning sensor. It actually was the coolant temperature sensor.

I now have another problem.

When I reverse, not when I put the gear into reverse, I have no problem with putting the gear into reverse, but when I release the clutch and give it a little has it makes a kind of grinding noise.

Same noise comes up when I am clutch braking, like when I slow the car without braking, using the clutch. For instance, I am driving in 5th gear at 80km/h and I want to slow down a bit, I just release my clutch without giving any gas, as the car slows and approaches 70km/h it starts making a weird grinding noise and stops when it gets to 60km/h. Same thing happens in every gear but at different speeds. What could this be?

This problem only started after coming back from a mechanic that took the car to fix the slow start problem. Not a very trusted mechanic I might add.

He told me he fiddled with some setting to enable the car to start faster while we wait to replace the coolant temp sensor. But then the car started driving really badly, misfiring all over the place. So he came back and removed the negative battery coupling and placed it in the positive for 10 minutes, started the car and proceeded to keep revving the car. That sorted out the misfiring problem but that grinding noise keeps persisting.

I am thinking that this mechanic probably did something to my car that broke something in the transmission or gearbox but he does not want to tell me because he will be held liable.

I regret asking this guy to work on my car because it seems the car is in worse condition than it was before.

I only had a slow start problem, now it seems I also have a transmission problem. Or is there perhaps another explanation?