you have to remove the knee bolster and look ^ by the clutch pedal. Thats where your master cylinder is. Slave cylinder is located above the bell housing.

If it was your master cylinder your pedal would be on the floor. As well as the slave.

 

^^^thanks.

makes me really confident in my mechanic...i thought i just had a worn clutch until he suggested that the master cylinder might be f-ed. the more i thought about it the more it didnt make sense but i wanted to check (its too dark, i'll prob check it out in the morning)


is there anything else besides a worn disc that would cause an alarmingly soft engagement? (maybe the pressure plate?)

 

mine has been like that for 4 years dont sweat it (knock on wood)

 

Sounds like a B5 to me. I've driven MANY manual B5's (worked at the dealer for a while) and they all engage/disengage towards the top. If it's to the point where it's rediculously high, your clutch is probably about shot. Based on history, master/slave cylinder issues don't really happen wtih B5's. Remember that issues with these cars are predictable and happen like clockwork. Any mechanic can take a guess, but I'd prefer listen to people that deal with audi's and only audi's on a daily basis... Not necessarily the dealer..

Besides, with 142k miles, why would you suspect anything OTHER than the clutch?????

 

my pedal felt like it would get stuck when engaging. I wold then have to pick it up with the toe of my sneaker. Could be a worn out clutch. As it wears the contact surface shrinks also.

Even though my clutchwas worn to crap when we removed it. It wasnt slipping at all when driving.

^ 142k miles? Could very well be so.

 

That sounds more like having air in the hydraulics, but possibly a bad master cyl. How does contact surface shrink?

 

yea thats what i suspected when i went into my mechanic (German car specialist, so hes part of the way there) and he threw a wrench into my thinking when he suggested the master cyl (which doesnt even make sense to me anymore). I gotta wait a few more weeks until my internship runs out to get the car into a shop (I wish I had your time and tools, your 97 project looks promising!) - I'm doing 70 miles a day and I can't afford a rental car AND to fix the clutch and exhaust. hopefully it won't go on me till then...*knock on wood*