Clutch won't disengage after engine install

[mattg1.8]

Just did an engine swap on my b7 2.0t 6mt. I removed the pressure plate and clutch disc from the new (used) engine while I had it on the hoist to inspect and make sure it was good. It looked better than the clutch that came out of the bad engine so i reassembled using my clutch alignment tool. I did not reset the SAC but didn't think I would have to since it was the same flywheel, disc, pp. I reinstalled the engine and bolted up the tranny. The clutch pedal now has freeplay through about half its stroke and doesn't feel like it starts to disengage until the pedal is almost on the floor. The car starts and runs good but with the clutch pedal on the floor, i attempt to put in 1st gear and it will not go into gear and tries to move the car forward which tells me that the clutch is in fact not disengaging. I'm planning to pull the tranny to see what went wrong, but figured id ask first in case anyone has come across this issue before.
Am I going to need to remove the pp and reset the SAC?
Is there an adjustment that can be made somewhere maybe?
Slave was never removed and throwout bearing/fork all looked normal. The engine only had 75k miles on it when it was removed and the clutch feel was perfectly normal before the original engine was removed.
Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

[chili dog]

I experienced a very similar problem after doing a new clutch and flywheel install recently. Long story short, for me, the clutch and pressure plate was mis-aligned the first time even though I used the alignment tool the new Luk clutch came with.

I got it corrected the second time around and everything works well now. Something to look into when you dive in again.

Unsure if you’ll need to reset SAC, I didn’t when I reinstalled the clutch the second time. So hopefully someone will chime in about that.


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[Theiceman]

Well if clutch disk and pressure plate are misalligned i seriously dubt you could get the main shaft into the pilot bearing.

But i would wonder if you have the shift fork engaged properly into the through out bearing.

If your slave has adequate throw ( which is the first thing you check ) , you may have to pull it apart.

[mattg1.8]

I didn’t mess with the throw out bearing at all. I looked at it and saw that everything looked normal. That’s a good point though, if the disk was misaligned then would the shaft be able to engage the splines and align into the pilot hole? The tranny bolted to the engine with no binding or unusual feeling.
When you did it the second time did you use a different alignment tool?

[Theiceman]

well if you never messed with it at all you could take the slave cylinder off and peer in and see if the throwout arm is in place. I wonder if it rotated off its axis and now it is clocked wrong ( not sure if that is even possible ) . Im sure taking the trans back out is a huge nghtmare because i did it lol.

[T30]

Does the clutch pedal have normal feel? Do you have a borescope? I would look in there with a scope and check things out, and I would confirm that the hydraulics are functioning before ripping into it.

[mattg1.8]

Wound up pulling the tranny. It was the SAC, it was maxed out and the pp fingers only had a tiny bit of available movement before hitting the stops. Used my spare pp that was already adjusted outward and it worked normal again.
I’ve seen a lot of controversy on whether pulling trans alone vice pulling entire motor and tranny. I had access to a lift and a tranny jack and the job was really very simple. Had the tranny out, clutch repaired, and tranny back in and mostly bolted up in about 5 hours.