Just Me

what do you mean "shift". Lever moves? Gears move? Does this mean that if you trn the engine off, put it in gear and start the car, it will move?

Grant

Kirill Arushanov

Once again, I have replaced both the slave and the master, I have bled the system thoroughly, perhaps even more than I should have. There was a lot of fluid coming out during the bleeding. I'm absolutely positive that hydraulics work.

Shift lever moves while the car is off, and I can feel it shift into all gears just fine. So I doubt it's linkage problem.

I have not tried to start the car in gear and see if it'll move. I'll do that tomorrow. I suspect it might be either the fork itself, or perhaps the tob...

I totally understand what you're saying about car still being able to shift even if the clutch disk is bad. I suppose I can't really identify the exact source of the problem unless I pull the engine...

ddillenger

The fact that you can put the car in gear without it running says a lot (effectively ruling out the shift linkage). I'd put the car in 2nd, depress the clutch pedal, and start the car. Make sure nothing is in front of you and you cover the brake! If the car lurches forward you have an issue with the hydraulics (air, misalignment) or something else preventing the clutch from properly disengaging the flywheel (fused clutch disc, bad TB). If the car doesn't lurch forward when you start it, just take it for a spirited drive, slip the clutch a bit while doing so. Nothing excessive, then shut the car down, put it in neutral, and try to put it in gear with the car running.

Kirill Arushanov

Thanks for everyone's responses. Update for the archive purposes and people who will be searching in the future:

The problem was pretty much non-existent clutch disk and broken TOB... When I took pressure plate off, the clutch fell literally fell down in little pieces. I could tell, it's been 150k miles since the thing was touched It was literally down to metal. I'm surprised it made it 40 miles on the way home after I bought it.

Two weekends of engine and trany out in garage in cold Nebraska weather and it's back in business... This was the first time I worked on Audi in general, and my first serious task was pulling engine and trany... Time well spent... I now know my new car. I was fairly impressed with the way this car was engineered. It drives so smooth and is really responsive... I don't regret buying an Audi, that's for sure.

Ended up changing rear main seal and input shaft seal while I was at it. And then I got to axles and redid the whole front end along with all the control arms, tie rods and struts... Good for another 150k

2.7Lturbo

dude, my first post was clutch/flywheel being the problem!


glad you figured it out, but for future reference, i wasnt pulling your chain, i knew it was the clutch/flyheel because the same thing happened to me and i also replaced all of those parts in a futile attempt to avoid doing the clutch/flywheel

SloopJohnB@mac.com

Thanks for the update. It sounds like the bad TO bearing wasn't moving the pressure plate back from the flywheel enough to stop the transmission input shaft from spinning. Or disk pieces were jamming the pressure plate even with the pressure plate back.

The pure fact is that the transmission will shift unless the input shaft is spinning. Whatever was wrong, the clutch disk was engaging with the flywheel and/or pressure plate rather than allowing the clutch disk and input shaft to stop spinning. It's rare that a worn clutch plate will do this, although a completely worn disk with metal core could/would rust to the flywheel or pressure plate given enough time.

Kirill Arushanov

Flywheel was actually in great shape... The clutch disk was only completely worn on the pressure plate side... I left it in. I only changed pilot bearing, which I forgot to mention in my update.