clutching at life

[greg lousy]

please help

I just finished replacing clutch (pressure plate, friction disc, release plate..... stuff from clutch kit) in the jetta.
The original symptom was extreme slipping, to the extent of barely getting home, then not even being able to drive the car around my place to where I wanted to work on it.
The job became a full on war ... a lot of bolts that have been settling in since 86, crap engine mounts that I swapped out, me being dumb at times, etc. when I got in there I found that my friction disc had just about zero material left on it. most of it had become a fine red dust sitting in the trans case, so I liked my chances of that being the issue (still think so).

Finally finished today or so I thought.... adjusted the clutch cable, got in to find the clutch had no return pressure... pedal stays on the floor.... checked cable.... its adjusted okay with operating lever being up with the pedal down, down with it up... whatever... as it should be.. double checked all the little cable parts... confident the cable is fine.
started the car and messed with the gears.... went for reverse and it grinded bad with pedal depressed and operating lever fully up.
Now I'm thinking that the main shaft gear is stuck in the damn friction disc or there's a push rod issue... and yes... I used aligning tool with friction disc and felt pretty good about its installation.

with the trans out, i shifted it by hand and noticed nothing awry. push rod went in and out smoothly and looked good too.
I lost maybe a cup or two of gear oil back by the axles during the war and was planning on topping off when I was running.... could this cause sticking?

any tricks I can try before pulling this thing apart again? internal trans issue ... worth redoing or not? anyone been down this road?
anything I can try by going into the small end of the tranny? (never been inside a tranny, can I mess with the push rod from there?)

any help greatly appreciated, as always..... daily driver here..... cummins needs work too ...situation startin to hurt

[Fatmobile]

Have you tried moving the clutch lever by hand?
When you push the clutch does it disengage? If not it could be a broken finger,.. also behind the green cap.
There should be a spring behind the green cap that pulls the cable back out and peddle back up.
Did you change the push rod tube seal and bushing? It doesn't sound like that is the problem but they should be changed with the clutch ot fluid will get dumped right onto the clutch disc. I remove the green end cap and hammer a 5/16" rod down the tube to push both out the trany end.
Once when the bushing was so worn out the rod couldn't catch the edge of it; I used a tap to pull the bushing from the other end. The end cap still needs to be removed to get rid of the shavings,... or they will bring it back for you to refix after the shavings take out the seal and it starts leaking.

[greg lousy]

Thanks.
The operating lever goes up and down by hand very easily too easily, all the while not disengaging the tranny. doesn't feel like I'm moving the push rod at all in any way. makes me think there's a problem with that finger or spring or the finger is not catching the push rod or something that I feel should be pretty clear if I get in there.

Can I access all this stuff through the end cap while the other internals stay in place?

no, I didn't change the push rod seal and bushing... no noticeable oil on old clutch. Honestly if I can basically fix this on car through the end I'm probably gonna just do it and get on the road.

I'll get back to this in a a day or two... now I have to get my truck drivable.

[TylerDurden]

I'd open the green cap and get a look-see.

For a clutch with that much wear (the old one), it is possible the throw-out bearing is also gone. I'd get another one... They don't cost much and should be changed with the clutch.

The fluid loss should not make that much difference right away, but by all means top it off asap to keep the throwout bearing and 5th gear lubed.

TD

[greg lousy]

So under the green cap everything looked in order... spring, circlip, finger, all there, intact and moving as they should. I have a throw out bearing on the way but the old one looked ok.
However, the push rod seems to be not pushing. In the picture, the throw out bearing is all the way in, as you can see by where my finger is, but the clutch is not engaged at all. the mainshaft is definitely enaged... can spin the wheels by turning the crankshaft etc. So the operating lever was not pushing the pushrod, which stays in this position, it was just pushing the finger into air.
Never been here before... the throw out bearing and push rod should pop out, into the space where my finger is right? If so, by what mechanism? I get that the push rod goes through the mainshaft and pushes against the clutch release plate but how exactly does that push the mainshaft back out of the friction disc?

anyhow, I'm clearly dropping the damn tranny again. I'm hoping I did something dumb on the other end, but I can't really think of what that would be that would cause the pushrod to push on nothing and do nothing. Do new clutch release plates generally come with that center screw that has the divot for the push rod?. It would certainly make perfect sense if the push rod was going through a hole there into nothingness. I like to think I would have noticed, but it was the middle of the night and I was in a kind of state... still hoping to drive the thing to work the next day.

also, if its relevant..... push rod looks fine too, glides right out as I'm guessing it should.

will post again when I drop the tranny, open to any thoughts...

[TylerDurden]

Pushrods have been known to wear through the disk, but not usually so soon. That is usually caused by a bad t-o bearing or binding by the pushrod.

It looks kinda dry in the end of the tranny... did you drain it down to take the cap off?

[Fatmobile]

Pick up the bushing and seal for the push rod if you are pulling the trany again.
#1 way I've seen clutches go is the seal passing fluid onto the disc.

I'm curious what happened.
You didn't somehow put a 4 speed pushrod in there did you?

[greg lousy]

what seal do you mean?

I lost some gear oil through a bad seal at the in the axle flange area. . there was some oil when I removed cap. I think I was fine on oil. will top off when done

I took off the cap in my parts car (which the golf has become) and things looked similar. the push rod was in about the same spot. I guess it stays further into that recess than I thought. ... also removed the push rod and it was the same length. bearings had similar, not too bad amount of wear.

Also playing around with old clutch parts, trying to figure out what I could have done wrong. I'm wondering if I over torqued the flywheel to pressure plate screws. Maybe I've got the friction disc clamped into place, always engaged, and maybe pushing the release plate in enough to push on the pressure plate and take the resistance out of the operating lever and pedal.
At the time I didn't have a 9mm 12 point socket for the screws, so I couldn't use torque wrench, used little hand wrench and probably went too tight.

.... may be able to get to those screws through timing check hole in trans., I will probably try that first

[Fatmobile]

I don't think overtorquing would result in this problem.
The seal and bushing I'm talking about go around the push rod. In the end of the mainshaft.

[greg lousy]

Turns out the problem was much more in my mind than the jetta. ... had some misconceptions leading me to misunderstand where the operating lever should sit... how hard it should be to push in the pressure plate... where the push rod should sit etc..... see where I'm going? I had the clutch cable adjusted way off. I can post address if either of you want to come by and slap me in the face.

fortunately realized before dropping tranny again. I was able to adjust flywheel screws through the timing hole a lot closer to the prescribed torque. got the new throw bearing in. not on the road yet... few other things.. but seems to shift good around my field. thanks

[Fatmobile]

Yeah, a happy ending.
Glad you found the problem before removing the trany again.

[supersisu]

Ha! I just had sort of the same thing: New clutch, 5 speed trans swap, get everything back together and pedal goes to floor. It looked like the clutch lever was in the wrong position: Did I forget the pushrod? Put in the pressure plate wrong? I had already pulled the transmission twice because I put the flywheel on wrong and almost gave up driving ever again. So after a day in the moaning chair, I start playing with the cable: Take out a lot of slack and it all worked fine. I think the old cable had stretched or something, the adjuster was at it's limit (or something, can't remember). Another thing that threw me was the distance the clutch pedal moves and the much smaller distance the clutch lever moves. Quite a multiple.

[greg lousy]

Thanks.. feels better knowing its not just me. The same things threw me off. Bentley calls for i think 3 mm of play in the cable which i wrongly thought refers to the bottom position of operating lever.... 3 mm from hard resistance of actually pushing the push rod.
Also, return pressure comes from pressure plate itself, i was too focused on the range of return spring, which, as far as i can tell, just pulls that finger completely off the throw bearing taking the last bit of pressure of the rod and push disc, probably extending life of both. As i understand it, you could remove return spring and still drive.
Next clutch job i do will sure be easier.