5 Speed not going in gear, any gear!

Sounds like the experienced people are on this area of the TDI forums. So here is my question.
I have already spoke with Jim at dieselgeek 2x and did not want to bother him again. But my problem is still there. I bled the brakes too low in the reservoir, refilled it and bled out the brakes. I forgot about the clutch and backed out of my drive. She went into reverse but would not go into any other gear. Now I seem to have no transmission. Clutch goes in and she will start, but running or not I cannot engage the tranny and the shifter seems to have no feel to it, no resistance. I bled out the clutch, a lot, but still no luck. i even adjusted the gear selector cables. No change. One odd thing is that the gear selector lever with dampening weight under the hood, the kind of upside down putter, when I move the 5 speed stick inside the car and try to find the gears, the GSLWDW moves to the far right as you look at in from the front of the car. And when it goes there the shifter inside the car will not go side to side. I then have to put the GSLWDW back to the neutral position to be able to move the shifter out of the 3/4 gates and into the other gears, but still no feel to the shifter...

Do I have a problem besides the clutch or do I still need to bleed the clutch again and again?? Then will this shifting problem and tranny problem will go away??

You need to bleed EVERYTHING again. You should get a VAGCOM and do a bleed of the ABS system with the vagcom as well. You will need about 2 litres of fluid for that.

Okay. So tomorrow I bleed everything again. How do you use the Vag-com to bleed the abs system. I have one so shall I just go through the menus to find what I need. I don't remember a operation manual with the Vag-com.

Grinch said:

One odd thing is that the gear selector lever with dampening weight under the hood, the kind of upside down putter, when I move the 5 speed stick inside the car and try to find the gears, the GSLWDW moves to the far right as you look at in from the front of the car. And when it goes there the shifter inside the car will not go side to side. I then have to put the GSLWDW back to the neutral position to be able to move the shifter out of the 3/4 gates and into the other gears, but still no feel to the shifter...

Do I have a problem besides the clutch or do I still need to bleed the clutch again and again?? Then will this shifting problem and tranny problem will go away??

Click to expand...

If the shift lever under the hood is over to the left or the right, it is in gear (3rd or 4th), so it cant go side to side. The side to side movement of the shifter inside the car makes the lever under the hood go up & down. Is it possible you crossed the cables? So side to side makes it go in gear?

Still trying

I haven't removed any cables or anything like that. So my concern is will the "tension" normally felt on the shifter return by continuously bleeding the clutch, or do I have another problem? When the shift lever under the hood goes to the right, it goes far right, and cannot be returned to center or neutral with the in-car shifter, it has to be moved back on the under hood shifter. It feels like the fore aft control of the tranny is not there. Does the clutch control the shifter's feel in the car? And do I really need to bleed the brakes again, the problem seems to be in the clutch. But are the 2 related in other than sharing the same reservoir? Oh, and how many bleeders are there for the clutch, one or two. I can only find one, it is on top of the tranny, by the left bottom of the air box.

Found It!

Found the problem thanks to Jim at Dieselgeek! A broken gear change cable that I was directed to, thank you! Now it is on order!

Grinch - sorry to hear of your trouble. I've been away for a couple days, or I would have suggested that as soon as I saw your post.

Mine was more obvious, at least: The metal piece that the counterweight attaches to broke in half!

3 days to get from the dealer. Both Parts and Service told me they'd *never* seen a failure of that part. That's why no dealer stocks it.

We can only hope. It only cost about 17 bucks for it, but it broke at 65 mph up a grade passing trucks, and I couldn't downshift to try to get out of their way. I would absolutely HATE to have that ever happen again.

Best of luck to you!!

Jeff

Wow. Fortunately mine broke backing out of the driveway. Just had to push the car back into the drive. My gear change cable broke at the crimp, sounds like a quality control problem!