Took upon me the job to help a colleague. Car was towed to my garage today and started immediately. I must say, have done 3 cars now with 4x4 both manual and dsg gearbox. But this is first time replacing a clutch on a MK3 octavia tdi. And what a nice development from Skoda when it comes to easy accessability to mounts, bolts and nuts. Really, it is just wonderful to work on this 150hp tdi with 4x4 compared to a MK 2 4x4. Especially around the bevelbox and the bracket to the engine block. No need to f...around with oil return pipe, take out drive axle flange, dpf or any of that s...t. Saved me at least one maybe two hours. I spent 2 hours today and gearbox is ready to be dropped.

 

Work steps were as follows:

- Wheels off

- Drop subframe with steering rack, used subframe guiding pins in order to not have to do an 4-wheel alignment

- Drive axle out (i took both sides) since I like to have as much room as possible. But one really need to disassemble the inner knuckle. But space is nice.

- Mark up and disconnect propshaft tie it up. Remove all lower bolts (2 I think it was) except 2 right and left side bolts from gearbox to engine

- Next was to remove air filterbox, battery and tray to get access to starter, mounts and shiftercables.

- Then I used a engine beam to support gearbox.

I hoisted the engine a bit up to loosen the mount and bracket just to check alignment on the beam. All good, and tomorrow is a walk in the park with, starter, shiftercables and shifter. Finally disconnect wires and remove gearbox mounts etc.

And voila, gearbox ready to be dropped on a gearbox lifter.

 

I calculated approx a total of 7 hours for the job, but I do believe that I will be done in maybe 5hours now. Thank you VAG engineers for making a diy mechanic life easier compared to work on MK 2 tdi 4x4 manual gearbox.

Yes, what happened with this car? Suddenly, clutch pedal went straight to bottom and didn't return. My take when I heard about it was "oh, its likely the concentric slave that has failed"

But it could also be bad break fluid, leakage, air in system and dirt in system. So, went over to look, saw that fresh break fluid between the engine and gearbox together with a lot of fluid on the underside engine dampening cover. 

So, since the original slave on these are slightly deeper than the ones that you can buy or get from dealer (superseded), one has to replace concentric slave cylinder AND a new pressureplate as well. At least thats what the factory repair manual states. Anyway, when all has to come down, there are no valid arguments against just to whole clutch replacement; dmf, clutch and pressureplate. The price difference is marginal when you diy, but substantial if factory workshop has to do it. In Norway just the dmf is like 1000Gbp... Bought all Luk parts at norwegian shop for approx 430Gbp shipping included. If we bought from Autodoc he could have saved another 150Gbp, but we are in a hurry and couldn't wait 2 more weeks (shipping to norway is sometimes like 2-3 weeks from autodoc). Local indyshop quoted 2151 Gbp for the job and parts. Factory workshop quoted more than 2725Gbp.

All the other parts on the table is also to be done this weekend. Timingbelt/wp, haldex service, xenon bulbs and full large service-oil, filters-breakfluid and inspection. We did a price research and received some offers for all the jobs parts included from local workshop (a good one). It was a total of 4089Gbp... these cars truly are pretty expensive to fix/service. 

What mileage has it failed at?

12 hours ago, SuperbTWM said:

What mileage has it failed at?

148000 km/92 000miles

I believe if I had to do mine again with decent facilities like yours I could do it in 5 hours, the garage wanted 16 hours labour , that was never going to happen.

 

I left the steering rack hanging and think I would do the same again.

 

What is the height to the underside of those ceiling joists you have and do you find with that limitation you have enough height to work comfortable underneath the car on jobs like this? Same question for suspension and brakes.

I'm guessing that the mobile stool makes working at a lower height achievable, I have one also that I use for brakes and suspension.

 

I am pondering this exact subject at present for the design of my workshop extension, whether I need to excavate down and have a lower floor level, I currently have 2.17m headroom.

Height is 1.05m. So, enough for me to do all type of work under.

Needs to be said, that if youre like 2m tall, I guess it is better with a 2 post lifter. 

But especially for suspension work my scissorlift is perfect.

Edited 7 February, 20251 yr by rbhelle

Today, 3h work and complete clutch replaced. New dmf, bearing, clutchplate and pressureplate. All done in 5h, and thats a new record to me. 

3 minutes ago, rbhelle said:

This bit is a lifesaver. It is actually a special tool for VAG meant to be used on gasoline engine head bolts.

But this XZN nr 10 round head pipe is excellent to use in tight spaces due to angle function. So I use this on all xzn bolts on VAG. Very handy to use on driveshaft bolts that are tight and xzn 10.

Edited 7 February, 20251 yr by rbhelle

5 hours ago, J.R. said:

I believe if I had to do mine again with decent facilities like yours I could do it in 5 hours, the garage wanted 16 hours labour , that was never going to happen.

 

I left the steering rack hanging and think I would do the same again.

 

What is the height to the underside of those ceiling joists you have and do you find with that limitation you have enough height to work comfortable underneath the car on jobs like this? Same question for suspension and brakes.

I really do not understand how they are to use 16h labour....?? That is like 2 full days. How do they manage that? 16h is twice the time if going flat rate...

Dishonest, like most of the garages in the area I last lived, he would have done it in an afternoon but wants 2 days labour, he looked a bit shocked when I went back to give him the spare slave cylinder I had (I fitted a new old stock one piece alloy cylinder and not the plastic one in the kit which would eventually have failed like the one on the car) and told him that I did the job myself without a ramp in far less time.

 

Good photographs of those problematic fixings!

 

A question now that you are such a connaisseur of this job, where the slave cylinder connection stub goes through the hole in the bellhousing shown well on the photos, is it sleeved or if not did yours have a lot of clearance?

 

The failure of the slave cylinders is the O ring connecting that stub pipe to the other half moulded onto the cylinder, I'm convinced mine failed due to the large mass on the end the bleed block vibrating the joint because it was free to move, someone had worked on mine before and I pondered had they removed an insulating sleeve?

 

13 hours ago, rbhelle said:

Height is 1.05m. So, enough for me to do all type of work under.

 

That cant be the height from the floor to the ceiling joists, did you mean 2.05m or perhaps 1.05m from car roof to joists?

See attached picture of the slave cylinder connection stub. Good place around it.

Edited 8 February, 20251 yr by rbhelle

4 hours ago, J.R. said:

That cant be the height from the floor to the ceiling joists, did you mean 2.05m or perhaps 1.05m from car roof to joists?

Oh, here are my garage measurements:

From ground floor to roof floor it is 2,52m.

Width from wall to wall is 7,01m

Depth from garageport to wall is 7,5m

 

Since floor to roof floor (attic floor) is only 2,52cm it i too low to have a 2 post lift. Thats why I have a scissor lift since lifting height is 1,05cm. In other words, I have just enough clearence to the attic floor when I max out the scissor lift with a superb mk2. Actually, I have enough space to even lift my Audi Q7 Etron almost max lifting height.

 

Standard floor to roof in norway is approx 2,40m, but in the garage I added 10cm. Should have had it to 3,5m if you ask me. That would have been ideal for a small 2 post lift.

Edited 8 February, 20251 yr by rbhelle

Thanks, my workshop being a sous sol (like a basement but not underground has a 2.17 floor to ceiling height so not enough for your type of ramp.

 

I will be extending it out the rear of the houe to get another 40m2 but I need to keep the same ceiling height to make a terrace above for the upper flor, I could lower the ground floor of the extension, now I know the target figure I can look at that.

So, after clutch replacement, needed to bleed the slave cylinder. And wow, that was a lot of debris and dirt inside. Also did brakefluid and that was better. So, do bleed out the whole clutch system as best one can. I used more than 1.5ltr of brake fluid to get the dirt out.

I noticed that as well, brakes bleed quite clear, the clutch (same fluid reservoir) fluid really blackened and full of particulates.

 

I cut open the original master cylinder (easy as its plastic) and the toroidal magnet that actuates the pedal position sensor was covered in black schmoo, it was magnetic but not seemingly metallic.

 

You dont need to pressure bleed the clutch, you can just open the knurled plastic bleed nipple and gravity does the rest although for the initial filling of a new slave cylinder it was probably wise to do so, subsequent bleeds take 5 seconds by hand, any air rises to a cavity directly underneath the bleed nipple.

 

While you are replacing the slave cylinder its worthwhile either replacing the bleed block AKA peak torque limiter or drilling out its internals, the latter preventing uncommanded clutch slip when pulling away from a junction in first gear or rapid upshifts followed by full throttle.

Update.

All good now. After clutch bleeding it was just to fire it up and clutch working again. Well, actually I did the timing belt and waterpump first since car is already on ramp. Bit timing on these CR tsi engines are easy to do. Have bought myself a CR ea288 timing kit that actually worked. Some of these kits are made by the lowest bidder, but this one I got now was pretty decent. Its a keeper and it is made by Profitool. Probably cheap sucker, but it worked well. Did not opt for Sonic kit since it was 3x the price.

 

Still, doing a clutch on a octavia Mk3 4x4 manual 6spd gearbox with the ea288 engine is much easier than on a octavia 4x4 mk2 with manual 6spd and ea 189 engine.

 

Here are some tools that really made it easy doing this operation:

1. A 800mm long xzn m10 1/2" bitpipe (reach inner driveshaftbolts from outside the brake disc)

2. A 140mm long round hex 8 bitpipe (some of the 16mm bolts on the bellhouse have hex 8 as an option) this is a lifesaver..

3. A 140mm long round xzn m10 bitpipe for difficult to reach xzn bolts (bracket for bevelbox/engine)

4. Astro Onyx 1/2"  pneumatic gun. This is so small and poweful that it reaches all those hard to get bolts. It takes out all bolts except the axle nut. Axle nut required a bigger 1/2" pneumatic impact gun.

5. Pressure brakebleeder makes brake/clutch bleeding a one man job.

6. Pneumatic Pressure coolant filler device. After opening the coolant circle from vcds, use pressure device to refill and that eliminates use of vcds to bleed in sequences (low high).

7. Profitool ea288 timing toolkit.

8. Ironside Digital torque wrench 20-200nm. This saves a lot of time when it comes to set different torques. Have mechanical as well, but much faster with digital and you dont need to release tension when done.

9. And last but not least, my old 3/8" pneumatic air wrench. I love this since it is powerful, 75nm torque. Actually better than my Milwaukee cordless long reach head 3/8". Besides, airtools never loose juice and no need to charge them 😊

I know that many use cordless, but I am leaning towards the opposite. Cordless is nice oitside garage, but in garage, I use 90% airtools. They are lighter, smaller and packs just as much power. With angle couplers the hose is not an issue. Since I upgraded my old high torque air impact to a more powerful one, I have not used my Milwaukee M18 high torque (1989nm nutbusting). It is just to heavy and cumbersome compared to the new pneumatic one. And the pneumatic one do take out axlenuts and crankbolts with no issues.

 

And the last thing, that I have a lot of, is headlights. I use this one;  Fenix HM65R-T v2. Especially the daylight mode (more yellow) is superb for my eyes. And it lasts a good 3-4h as well. Replacable batteries.

I agree regarding air tools, always much lighter as they dont have the motor windings, even more significant on 18v battery tools plus the battery weight, maximum torque at zero RPM and a personal preference, I dont like to soil my Bosch cordless tools with oily hands, air tools are usually wipe clean alu.

 

I must buy an air ratchet like yours and also invest in those long and extra long hex, Torx and XZN bits.

 

I would also add the engine support beam and subframe location eccentric bolt kit to your list as essentials rather than to make the job easier. Also one of those conical clutch centralising tools that clamp the driven plate to the clutch cover, much more accurate than the mandrel set I made as an apprentice.

Wow great work rbhelle!

A family members car suffered the same issue with the clutch and this post helped me greatly when researching the issue. I ended up helping them by contacting a workshop and it was nice to have an estimate of time necessary and which parts to change for this job.

I created this account just to thank you!

2 hours ago, UsedP80 said:

Wow great work rbhelle!

A family members car suffered the same issue with the clutch and this post helped me greatly when researching the issue. I ended up helping them by contacting a workshop and it was nice to have an estimate of time necessary and which parts to change for this job.

I created this account just to thank you!

Hello there!

Well, happy to help. I have had a lot of help from other members contribution in here, so it is nice to return the favour.

Regards, Roar