Thread: 98 V8 clutch problems

Hi guys, hoping one of you landy gurus can help me with an issue?
When I depress my clutch the thrust bearing is squealing and I'm not able to get it in any gear. I've tried bleeding the clutch with no success, so decided to remove the slave cylinder (wow ***** of a job) but all looked fine, and doesn't appear to be any leaking from the master cylinder. There's no damper in the line anywhere to have failed and since it's all sealed up I can't see the clutch fork.
I now can't get barely any pressure in the clutch and am lost but want to Cancel out everything before removing the engine or gearbox, for one it will be a pain in the ass to get out, and the other is I have mud racing tomorrow night and don't wanna pull out.
I know the thrust bearing is making a noise but to me that means it's making contact with the pressure plate so am assuming it has to be a cylinder problem or an air lock somewhere.

I bought a '98 Tdi a couple of years ago with the same symptoms and I suspect problem, the clutch release fork will have broken or collapsed in some way. In our case one of the two legs of the release fork had snapped off, this still gave a little bit of push against the clutch pressure plate but not quite enough to disengage it. There is also a common problem with the original release forks "holeing through" at the fulcrum or slave ball sockets. From what you are describing either the fork has broken or the release bearing may have collapsed.
Either way the gearbox will need to come out, or the engine whatever your preference.
I removed the gearbox/transfer case, just working under the Disco on my shed floor on my own, the whole job took about 8 hours from whoa to go.
I had made up a special "gantry lifter" to straddle the tranny tunnel off the vehicle floor that attached to a "centre of gravity" lift point on the rear of the gearbox through the tunnel opening above the gearbox, using a 16mm screw thread to do the lowering/lifting, it made the job so easy particularly doing it solo.