Clutch prob / ATE Power Disk

["Thomas, Nathan" <nthomas@imps0014.us.dg.com>]

David...I've dealt with both of these recently...here's what I experienced:

>  First, I talked to Rod at the Parts connection and he was very helpful. 
>  He said the Power disk was just on sale and I'm wondering about what 
>  other people thought about them. Does anyone have any experience with 
>  using them in the cold/salted north? I'm wondering if corrosion in 
>  the grove is an issue? 

I just installed these on my '85 4ksq, along with Repco MetalMaster pads.
It took a little breaking in, but now they stop great, and with good
pedal feel.  My car hasn't sat a whole since I put them in, but to date,
no rust.  I can see where your concern might be valid though, with no pad
contact to clean the groove as it does the rest of the rotor.  


>  Next, On the '91 200 20v, the clutch peddle acts funny. It seems to 
>  engage the clutch roughly the first two or three shifts. Sometime is 
>  also slaps my foot when I'm releasing it. What I mean is that when 
>  pulling my foot back, to release the clutch, the peddle seems to hang 
>  up part way back, then I stop my foot somewhere above the peddle (since 
>  the peddle is no longer moving), and the peddle decides to release the 
>  rest of the way. This happens in a split second. I'm thinking the clutch 
>  itself is probably OK, but the clutch hydraulic circut is probably to 
>  blame. Air in the line? Rough bore in the master cylinder? What else? 
>  Help!?! 

My 4ksq did _exactly_ the same thing, and eventually got bad enough that
I had to tuck my toe under the pedal on occasion to get it to return
properly.  After having my Audi dealer tell me that my car didn't have a
hydraulic clutch (!) I decided to look at it myself, and noticed that the 
brake fluid resovoir was empty.  Well, the brakes still worked fine, so I
suspected that I had a leak in the clutch hydrualics (which, btw, uses the
same resovoir).  I saw no leakage around the pedal or master cylinder, but
slight leakage down by the slave.  For the time being I just refilled the
fluid resovoir, and that fixed my problems.  Once it ran out of fluid again
though, I decided it was time to have it fixed...so I took it to my shop, 
where they discoverd that it was the piping running from the master cylinder
_to_ the slave cylinder that was leaking (it costs more than a rebuilt slave
cylinder, just for reference...).

In any case, I guess my guess would be that you have a leak in your 
clutch hydraulics and are running out of brake fluid.  There are a lot of
possible other faults though, and the only indicator you have is that
pedal feel...that was just the outcome that I had.

nate