Hi folks, long time lurker, first time poster.

So I went to change my clutch yesterday, and this afternoon got everything bolted up, however, I've a problem with the repairs. In both cases, with the car off and on, I cannot put the transmission into gear. It's just short of getting into gear if that makes any sense. There was a lot of stuff that needed to get removed and this and that, so I'm a bit lost as to where to start looking.

- The clutch pedal does return back to original position, although it does feel a little softer than before, so I'm guessing that it's not the clutch slave cylinder
- The two things that I'm guessing that it could be is where shifter linkage is, where I might not have pulled the rod that the shifter linkage connects to enough or maybe the fork for the throwout bearing popped out of place. I'm praying that the latter's not the case as it'd be a real pain to get that transmission pulled out again though...

Any other suggestions would be of great help.

thanks & happy new years

 

Have you read this DIY?
http://www.audiworld.com/tech/eng48.shtml

Not sure what else to say.. GL though!

 

What kind of clutch did you put in?

 

Mike I am using an OEM clutch. I've been down the path of modifying cars before and my wallet's had enough of that slippery slope espeically with the way the economy has been.

Compmanben, that was one of the sources I reviewed before doing the clutch job.

The only other thing I could think about was maybe I put the clutch disc in the wrong way, but with the way those were shaped, I wouldn't have been able to tighten down the pressure plate then.

 

Which way did you put the disk in? For the stock flywheel the disk goes in with the curved part facing upward toward the pressure plate so that it does not catch on the flywheel bolts.

 

Hi Mike, yes, the flywheel was bolted up with the teeth for the starter towards the block. The clutch disc should have been installed with the lettering that said "audi" pointing towards the transmission. From the profile view, the part that grips the input shaft for the transmission has two lengths that come off the clutch, one side with a short height, and the other that is taller if that makes any sense, and the long side went towards the block, and the short side facing the transmission.

The fork with the throwout bearing, I just clipped the fork in after popping it out to get the throwout bearing on there. Didn't know that the bearing was on the fork by just two little tabs on the back. I'm kind of afraid of the fork not holding onto the pivot since I took that off and the scenario I'm most dreading.

 

If you installed the disk so that the side of the hub that sticks out from the disk is facing toward the flywheel you are going to have problems since the center of the disk is now hitting the flywheel bolts. The correct way of installing a unsprung disk on a stock flywheel is so that the curved part of the center section of the disk where the splin is located faced toward the pressure plate.


Here is a picture of a 1.8t unsprung disk. The side you see facing upward in the picture should face the stock flywheel, this way the stock flywheel bolt heads do not hit the hub.



If the disk is installed backwards the hub of the disk will sit lower then the actual disk causing it to catch the bolts since the center area of the stock flywheel is flat putting the bolts at the same level as the surface area of the flywheel where the disk makes contact. This is why a sprung disk can not be used on a stock 1.8t flywheel.

 

Yeah when I put the disk in, the edge of the disk did not protrude beyond the rim of the flywheel, so that was okay. so there aren't many other things left that it could be right? maybe the fork popped out or it's with the shifting linkage or maybe the slave cylinder?

oh yeah in case I forget, thanks for the help. Seriously I'm so exhausted from the past two days so any help on the matter is very much appreciated.

 

If you cant put the car into gear while the engine is off then there must be an issue with the actual linkage. Might want to get under there again and make sure the little bolt is actually going into the hole that is in the shaft coming out of the transmission.

 

Thanks Mike! Hmm, how likely though do you think it'd be the fork if it's not the linkage, like any particular symptoms that the car would exhibit if it was the fork that's dislocated?