I pulled my 2002 base model convertible into my garage last night after work just fine. With the clutch depressed and the tranny in 1st gear, I shut off the engine, released the clutch, and went inside for the night. Nothing new at all about this procedure for me.

This morning when I was leaving go to work, as usual I depressed the clutch, put my right foot on the brake, and hit the key. But when I did, the car tried to lurch forward. I released the key of course, put the tranny in reverse, and tried it again. The same thing happened, only going backwards.

I can depress the clutch and it feels fine. I can shift the car between gears with or without the clutch when the car is not running. But when it's running, it won't go into gear even with the clutch all the way to the floor.

I'm not sure where to begin trouble shooting this. My first thought was slave cylinder, but my previous experience with this kind of thing on a Miata was that the clutch would go to the floor. I found this on our beloved discussion board, TT Clutch Issue but I'd like to confirm exactly what the problem is before I start in on any major work.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

 

Have you tried to drive it by starting in neutral, i.e. does it drive normally once running?

 

And therein lies my issue. I can start the car in neutral, but when I push in the clutch and try to select a gear, it won't go into gear. It'll grind as long as my nerves can take it (for about .01 millisecond), but won't go into gear.

 

Start car in 1st gear with vehicle "aimed" forward. I assume it will start moving forward. Drive forward Shift from 1st to 22nd at normal gear change speed. Try to make it to 3rd. To stop, pull shifter to N. Restart in 11st and repeat to get home. If all of this pans out, your clutch is not dieengaging. Either all the fingers on the pressure plate have worn away or you have a hydraulic issue or the master or slave cylinder is bad. More troubleshooting will be required. You can tell if you have a hydraulic problem by looking at the hose/tubing where it mates with the slave cylinder/transmission . Battery &tray out, you look at it while someone presses the pedal. Does the hose/pipe move/tension up like there's a lot of hydraulic pressure there?
The slave cylinder on the 4 cylinder models requires transmission removal to replace.

 

Thanks for the troubleshooting help, Mister Bally. I'll try that when I can get some clear road to do so on. I'm in Houston and it's pouring outside (again)! I guess these cars must have some pretty tough starters to handle that kind of work load.

 

In regards to the above suggestion, I did so and found that when I clamp my fingers around the rubber part of the hose while my lovely assistant (aka wife) pushed and released the break pedal, I could feel the hose ever so slightly expand and relax with each pulse, as well as notice very slight movement in most of the line. I sensed pressure.

To my way of thinking that would mean either the slave cylinder is out, or the fingers on the pressure plate or gone? Or maybe the throw out bearing? Your thoughts? I've had seriously bad luck with cars lately and would dread tearing this one apart. My job leaves me no more than about two hours in the early morning to work on ANYTHING, and I'm seriously strapped for cash regardless of what it would cost to fix this little gem.

 

To my understanding, your 2002 is like my 2001 Beetle (turbo, FWD) The throwout bearing & slave cylinder is the same assembly.

For either issue, you need to remove the transmission to inspect & replace. The service manual will verify this in case I'm mistaken. I can't access mine at the moment as I have three cars down I need to work on. A service manual is mandatory if you're doing any repairs on these cars.

 

My guess is you have a leak somewhere, which is causing air to get in the lines and not allowing the lines to hold as much pressure as what is required for the throw out bearing to work properly.

The clutch master cylinder is a very common fail point on these cars. However, when they do, they typically do in a spectacular fashion. The pedal will stick to the floor and brake fluid will get everywhere in the drivers foot well of the car. I would check the foot well, and remove the lower dash panel below the steering wheel and inspect the master cylinder and the areas around it looking for fluid. That could be the source of of a leak.

Mister Bally had one fail in his 1987 Audi 5000 CS Quattro, and it failed in the most spectacular way. It also ruined a very nice pair of shoes, but back to the important topic...

If you can feel the the line tensing up at all, you have some amount of pressure in the line. Check your brake fluid reservoir and make sure you have a level within the marked tolerance.

No matter what, if it is low or within, I would suggest bleeding the clutch line via the bleeder block for the throw out bearing. The Bentley manual for these cars says to use a pressure bleeder with a pressure of about 25psi. Make sure it is close to 25psi. Most hand pump pressure bleeders dont reach more than 15psi. I found this out the hard way after repalcing my clutch and had to rig up an air compressor with a tank to successfully bleed my master cylinder and throw out bearing.
Do this once, passing about 100 ml of fluid through the system. Then pump the clutch pedal 15 times. Pass another 100 ml through it, and again pump 15 more times. That should successfully bleed the entire system assuming you don't have a leak in the system.

If this doesn't fix it, I hate to say it but you will have to pull the trans and inspect it all. At that point I would have to believe the pressure plate has snapped all of its teeth off which make contact with the throw out bearing. Although I highly doubt it would come to this.