Clutch engagement problem?

[novatsi]

Ok, I know this question alone have gotten the beat down over and over again, but seriously I haven't read a conclusive solution to the clutch engagement problem. This is my general scenario on my 1994 tsi awd with an Act 2600. When I first start up the car and the car is cold, I can shift freely threw every gear, but after let’s say about 10 miles of driving I have problems shifting “only into first gear”. It seems like the pressure plate isn’t properly disengaging. However, if I double pump the clutch pedal really hard to its maximum distance, I would be able to shift into first gear. What’s weird is if I give the car a little gas, most of the time I can quickly shift into first gear. I’m sure a lot of you guys have or have had this problem. Mainly, what fixed your problem? Was it replacing your clutch pedal assembly, welding the clutch pedal assembly, replacing the clutch release fork or pivot arm, or extending the shaft for the clutch master cylinder? By the way, I have the shaft for the clutch master cylinder extended all the way out and previously when I first installed the first Act 2600 this solved the problem, but this is my second clutch and I just to exactly pin point the problem before fussing around with something that didn’t needed to be fixed. Anyone with insight, please offer me your response and it will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[oldman]

You are loosing pressure when the fluid gets warmed up which means you're barely making enough pressure to work the 2600. Did you check for freeplay on the pedal? I only had very little play so I went through mc, sc, sc extended rod, ss line and bleed it ten million times. Finally I ripped out the pedal assembly and welded it.

 

[novatsi]

Its seems to me that ever since I installed my buschur racing stage 3 head and stage 3 block my car has been running at a temperature that is far higher then regular temps. One of the problems I was thinking that ya it could be the clutch fuild is over heated. Also, my car has only originally 73k and barely any free play within the clutch pedal assembly. What do you think, maybe I'll try some extreme high temp clutch fuild first instead of ripping out my clutch pedal assembly.

 

[oldman]

How much freeplay are we talking about, I only had about 1/2" play which I thought couldn't have made a difference. I've also called serveral dsm shops looking for some kind of high performance silicon based clutch fluids, most of them didn't know what I was talking about.