I have an 87 golf in which the clutch will not dis engage the pedal goes to the floor with little or no effort. The cable and the clutch lever are good. The lever never pushes on the clutch release bearing almost as if it has compressed . Any ideas.
all will give the same symptoms as yours.
later, dave (One out of many daves)
Dave is right. The #1 cause of this is a crack in the lever. The crack may be a very hard to see hairline crack. This happened to me, and I was warned it was most likely the lever. Pulled the lever off, looked at it, didn't notice the crack and then assumed it was the pushrod. I was later told if you can remove the pushrod easily (which I did -- with just a socket and an extension) then the pushrod didn't go through the pressure plate. So look again, and then see if the pushrod is still free. The chances that the pushrod went through a pressure plate with 15k miles on it (assuming that portion of the plate -- I forget what its called since its actually a seperate piece from the pressure plate -- was replaced) seems tiny. Check how the clutch release bearing moves when someone presses on the clutch pedal. Try pulling it out (with a magnetic pick-up tool). If the bearing moves inward easily but not back out thats probably the pressure plate, if it doesn't move inward much its probably the lever.
I'd recommend taking the shaft out of the tranny and inspecting the clutch lever. I've had one crack on the bottom side, where you can't see the crack with the shaft in the car. When the lever cracks, it rotates on the shaft and no longer contacts the throwout bearing - it looks OK when in the tranny but the crack is obvious once you take it out.
Todd Seattle,WA '86 GTI, Red of course. (exciting racey car) 261,000 miles '87 Golf, Polar Silver. (boring work car) 553,000 miles
Well let us know what you find when you pull the trans and take off the clutch components. :-(
good luck!
Sure sounds like the pushrod went through the pressure plate. Retrieve the bearing with a magnetic pick-up tool and then try to see if the pushrod will budge. I'd have a word with whoever did the last clutch job, because I can't imagine what happened for the pressure plate to outright fail in 15k miles. Maybe they didn't replace that portion of the pressure plate.
release bearing sits inside of the trans just behind that big round cover you can pull off the left side of the trans, if you are changing the bearing or it's arm. It should be receiving gear lube to keep it lubed, but I have one trans that is not lubing this bearing even with the trans FULL of lube.
On Tue, 7 Mar 2006 21:44:59 +0000 (UTC), blah wrote: Retrieve the bearing with a magnetic pick up tool. The bearing will not come out with a magnetic pick up tool. Have not tried a C4 shape charge yet.
That is truly bizarre. The bearing is not attached to anything, anywhere. It floats freely in that tube, the inside pushes against the pushrod. Maybe the bearing some how seized in there and is whats holding your pushrod in. I've never heard of anything like that, and if true, I can't imagine how you'd ever remove it (maybe hammer it out from the inside), because the pushrod should be pushing it out with a lot of force.
Only thing I can think to try (and this is really extreme), is drilling into it and pulling it out (possibly with a makeshift puller), but I'm not sure the bearing would stay intact to remove it. Also, remember the pushrod may be being pushed on with a lot of force, so that pushrod could come out as a projectile.
Hopefully, if the bearing simply got seized, if you could get it out, even if it damages the tube, the transmission may still be reusable if you just get a new bearing (which is quite cheap).
I had a problem with an '86 Jetta constantly eating up release bearings and it's pushrod for about 3-4 years. ugly and costly even though this Jetta was not driven much.
things done that did not help: new clutch kit including release plate new clutch cable new seals on the pushrod, checked it's bushing new seals on the halfshaft flanges and filled up the trans well different styles of release bearings pre-lubed (all metal lasted the longest) tried to make sure the bearing got oil. left different amounts of freeplay in the cable
none of the above made much of a difference. it seemed like it was getting enough lube. and yes those alignment pieces are in place between engine and trans.
I just changed the transmission to eliminate this problem.
later, dave (>
What is truly bizarre is that it will rotate when I tried to drill it It must be made out of some really hard steel
The bearing is supposed to give a non-rotational surface for the lever to push on (on the outside) and a rotational surface (on the inside) for the pushrod to push on. There should be virtually no force against the tube wall, especially from the pushrod. It makes me wonder if somehow the pushrod slipped and is producing some force that is jamming the bearing against the wall. I can't imagine what else could cause it to seize in place. But like I said, I've never heard of anything like that.
So I'm curious, I presume you've pulled the tranny by now. What happened?
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