Clutch not releasing

I have an 03 Jetta my wife drove in the past. She inherited her Moms car so the Jetta has been parked for a little more than a year with an ocational start and move. Clutch worked fine when parked. My son in law is in need of some economical transportation so we gave it to him. When he started to drive it he complained about how hard it was to shift and getting worse. I checked it out and the clutch is not releasing. I can turn it off and put it in gear and change gears fine but not with the motor running. Changing gears driving is the same without pushing the clutch as it is pushing it.I bled the slave cylinder but did not help. I swapped the slave cylinder this AM with one off a Beetle I have torn down working on and it seems the throw out bearing fork has plenty of pressue on it so I dont think it is broken.After changing the slave cylinder and bleeding I can hear the clutch make a squaking noise when pushing the pedal like it is moving. Started the car and at first it seemed to have fixed it but after a few minuites of running and operating the clutch and gears I am right back to where I started. I am thinking now it may be the master cylinder but looking in my Bentley Manual looks to be a pain to change requiring special tools I will have to improvize. Sorry for the long text. Has anyone else had this experience and found the proper repair. Car has 305K on it and to my knowlege ha never had the clutch changed.

Is the clutch disk worn? How many miles on it? How did you perform this check?
"I checked it out and the clutch is not releasing"

Same exact senario when Donna's clutch went south. Kirk Blackmore did that one, he recommended to replace the fork and pivot ball also, no matter what they look like, as they are a common wear out point.
When I did mine I replaced everything also, parts are cheap compared to time and labor spent.
Fork may have come off or cracked at the pivot. New clutch time sounds like. IDparts has a good deal on vr6 setups. Make sure there is a TDC mark on the flywheel before you install it. I have heard sometimes they are not there, have not run across that personally though.

300k miles on it but I have no way of knowing if the clutch disc is worn other than the fact it has never slipped. It pulls as good as it always has. When I had the slave cylinder off I took a bar and applied had pressure to the egagement end of the fork arm and could not budge it. Reading a post last night suggested if it was cracked I could probably moe it a little

Sorry meant to write move a little . Just read in another post that 1 inch of movement is normal and this one does not move freely at all. I have owned many of these cars for the last 20 years. I have done all my own maint including timing belt changes but never had a clutch issue. I even tought both my daughters how to drive a manual transmition in them as both their first cars were NB TDI'S with manual transmitions and never had a clutch problem. I wa sure hoping it to be an external issue because I believe I would rather have a toothe pulled than pull a front wheel drive transmition with the equipment I have here. Maybe it is easier than it looks. Rear wheel drive transmitions are easy and I have done plenty but this does not look to be a simple process.

Sawmildon I thought I was answering your question but I guess I was not. I checked it out by driving it. The only way to get it in gear is to force it or turn off the engine. When you have the clutch pedal depressed and try to ease it in gear you can here the tone of the engine change as soon as it tries to engage. It acts exaxctly the same way when you dont push the pedal at all.

yeah, you would think the arm would be rattling free if that was it. Bought a chevy truck once that had the throw out bearing froze to the input shaft sleeve. Those had an inspection cover and I could free it up. I suppose if your master or slave (I believe you said you replaced it) were bypassing pressure internally that could do it. That is what I thought was wrong with Donna's and each time I replaced and bled, it worked but only for a short time. Kurt did that clutch and I don't recall what exactly he found. I believe the DMF may have failed. Been going strong since then. It's a drag not having an inspection cover when something like this happens.

True that. I replaced the slave with a used one. What is driving me crazy is I can let it sit for a hour and start it up and I can change gears ok but if i let the clutch out and let it pull a little it goes back to not fully releasing.

Could be:

1) Throwout bearing is sticking on front seal shaft sleeve. Bearing is good, but the rest of it is about to give up the ghost.
2) Some of the pressure plate's tines are weakened.
3) Pivot bushing worn and has worn into the clutch fork allowing the system to be mis-aligned and bind a tad.

But the clutch releases when stopped in gear with your foot on it? I assume it tries to creep?

I wonder if the flywheel of PP or both got rusted to the disc. I'd try slipping the heck out of it for a bit and see if things smooth out.

I’ve had two mkiv TDIs with that exact problem but with two different causes. The first was a bent throw out “arm” and the second was a failed dmf. Regardless, the fix was basically the same.

I thought about the disc being seized since it was parked a while but it has been driven a couple hundred miles and not freed up yet if it is. Yes although it is very slight when you are on flat ground it does try to move ever so slightly which tells me it is releasing but only 90% or so. seems if the disc were seized it would keep pulling hard when you have it in gear with the engine running. I have a 99 that got T-boned and totaled 10 years ago and it can sit for 2 years and if you throw a battery in it will start like it was just turned off and clutch works perfect. Always planned to find a good body to install the motor and trans in but never ran across one worth the effort.

Thanks Gforce. I guess I am trying to avoid the unavoidable. Maybe it was stuck and bent the arm trying to release it. Should have left itin the TDI graveyard I guess. I am thinking about making a plate at work to bolt in place of the cylinder with a jack bolt in the middle and see if it will release the clutch. If it does I will try the master cylinder first. Shame there id not a pressure check to test it.

I ran into the clutch not releasing issue on a 1.8 after we did a transmission swap. Seems as though some brake/clutch fluid from a leaking slave cylinder got on the friction disc and the slipping upon startup almost instantly warped the friction disk enough that it wouldn't release.
I went thru the bleeding and many other troubleshooting procedures even building a mechanical device to move the immovable fork. Last resort to pull the tranny again and replace the friction disc and pressure plate. That fixed it, of course.
I guess the only point on that ramble is/was that perhaps the clutch got worn, abused, warped and will not release. The clearances are very minimal between properly working and not and you probably won't solve the issue w/o pulling the tranny. It's not a bad job, even on just drive on ramps and a helper. In and out in a half a day for a first time(er).

plugger said:

Thanks Gforce. I guess I am trying to avoid the unavoidable. Maybe it was stuck and bent the arm trying to release it. Should have left itin the TDI graveyard I guess. I am thinking about making a plate at work to bolt in place of the cylinder with a jack bolt in the middle and see if it will release the clutch. If it does I will try the master cylinder first. Shame there id not a pressure check to test it.

Click to expand...

Here is the thread I made that has info on both cars
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=333365
Unfortunately, photobucket sucks now and the picture links are screwed up (I think you can still click on them to see them.

There is actually a pressure test you can do. Unbolt the slave cylinder from the transmission and bolt a plate across the end that prevents the rod from moving out. I had some bracket laying around that works perfectly. I use it as a protection while doing a clutch to prevent someone from pressing the clutch pedal and ruining the slave. The pedal should be rock hard with the slave locked in place.

On the car with a bad DMF, pumping the clutch pedal 6 or so times would allow me to get it in 1st while the engine was running.

On the car with a broken throw out arm, there was over an inch from the mounting point of the slave cylinder to the arm. Once replaced, it is closer to 7/16"

I'm trying to recover those photos and get them posted somewhere else...

Measurement showing bad throw out arm:

After repair:

One additional cause for a vehicle that has sat a lot is a build up of corrosion on the input shaft and disc splines. The fretting corrosion can prevent the disc from sliding, drags on flywheel, shifting is difficult into 1st or REV from standing start.

Thanks guys. Sorry for slow response I have been outside messing with it all day. I drained the fluid to make sure it was not full of debris from forcing the thing so many times and it looked good. I tried something differant just now. I put it in gear and started it up and with the clutch all the way in and reved it up the car would take off so it is definately not releasing. Guess I will tear it down Easter weekend with FRiday off. Going to Martinsville next weekend to watch some great racing. I think I will try the plate idea. That will ease my mind about the master cylinder.

Just saw the pictures. Thanks. This one hardly has any play in it. I will measure when I remove the cylinder but I believe it is much less