Oh great. New clutch 18 months ago now the pedal won't come back up!

Any ideas what would cause this? 

20 minutes ago, b1ackb1rd said:

Any ideas what would cause this?

1. Broken return spring
2. External hydraulic fluid leak
3. Internal HFL

2. BIG puddle of brake fluid under the drivers side

 

I'm guessing master cylinder and/or seals.

This is the first car since 1980 that I've had to get recovered; attempting to start the car in gear to limp home was too bloody dangerous. 

Probably an easy job to fix, but I hate anything to do with brake fluid so it's going to be fixed at the local garage. 

 

I've had this, it was the  slave cylinder which is inside the bell housing.

Good luck.

1 hour ago, b1ackb1rd said:

2. BIG puddle of brake fluid under the drivers side

Given that I'd think either slave cylinder leak (and the slave is inside the bell housing); by external I meant the fluid was leaking out of the circuit, which goes nicely with the puddle of hydraulic fluid. Or the master - slave hydraulic line has blown.

It's our 1.6 tdi that's the problem, I have a neighbour who is a VAG technician, he looked up our vrm, he said this is a rare failure and that the records he has access to suggested the slave was outside the bell housing?

 

Either way, I'm not going it myself. 

1 hour ago, KenONeill said:

Given that I'd think either slave cylinder leak (and the slave is inside the bell housing); by external I meant the fluid was leaking out of the circuit, which goes nicely with the puddle of hydraulic fluid. Or the master - slave hydraulic line has blown.

Slave cylinder be it concentric or external would be on the passenger side of a UK RHD vehicle.

 

Drivers side indicates the master cylinder, my money is on the pipe joint underneath given that the clutch system was worked on in the last year, the O ring seal needs to be pressed onto the pipe with a positive click and then the pipe pushed into the cylinder and the retaining clip pushed home. Common sense and habitude tells you to put the O ring into the cylinder bore then introduce the pipe, this will cause either an instant or delayed leak.

 

No need to ask how I know.

 

There is no pedal return spring but a control loading spring and cam which will push the pedal either up from just above the mid point or down from just below the midpoint, this produces the weird pedal falling to the floor symptom when a concentric cylinder draws in air from the joint in the plastic parts but does not leak fluid.

 

All of the above is for the OP or anyone else reading as Ken has blocked my posts.