Am I barking up the right tree? Clutch hydraulics issues...

In reply to NOHOME :

It's full time AWD. The engine is in front and is connected to a real transaxle that has an internal front diff, a LSD center diff, and a driveshaft to the rear LSD.

It does not try to move on it's own at all.

*urge to pedant about Torsen differentials rising*

My bent clutch disk would act like yours, if I read you right.  Engagement point was fine, shifting was fine below 6000rpm. Once stopped the input shaft would stay stopped, but if you disengaged the clutch from Neutral while stopped it was difficult to engage a gear.

Oh well...lube change would have been an easy thing to try. 

When the clutch was replaced, were any other parts replaced (release arm, pivot ball, etc)?

Some googling shows that Audi changed geometry on the clutch release arm and related components on some years/models requiring replacement as a set, so if any individual components were replaced (rather than a set) it could be  the reason the problem started with the new clutch. 

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

I have no idea what the actual version of the differentials are in this car other than the front is open, the middle is some sort of not open but not locked, and the rear is the optional uber-awesome Sport Diff which is also of the not open and not locked type and has a computer controlling it's mechanicals and 2 different fluids. 

Thanks for the info on the clutch disc. I fear you're right, and that's gonna suck.

In reply to No Time :

Interesting. I'll dig up the invoice

I finally got fed up with chasing crap on my Branger so I did the whole f'ing thing.  Flywheel, clutch, pressure plate, slave, master, the works.

I had the same exact symptoms.  Clutch engaged beautifully right in the middle.  Nothing spongy, bled multiple times, but no matter what I did, it would not fully disengage the clutch.  If I took it out of gear, even with the clutch still the whole way in, the trans would start spinning and I couldn't get it back in gear.  It was as if the first half of the clutch pedal being depressed disengaged it 95%, then the rest of the clutch pedal movement didn't do any more than 95%.  I finally threw my hands up in the air and assumed that a diaphragm spring was bent or broken, or the part the PO used included the wrong flywheel, or wrong pressure plate.  I pulled it out and it looked like a basically-new Luk kit with absolutely nothing wrong.  Put in a new Exedy set and everything was fixed.

I fixed it, but never figured out what was wrong

NOHOME said:

No idea if the Audi is front or rear wheel drive, but if it were possible, I would put the car on stands, put the car in neutral and turn the driveshaft while making a mental note of how hard it was to turn.

 

Then I would repeat with the trans in gear and the clutch pedal depressed. The goal is to see if it is substantially harder to turn in gear with the pedal down than it is in neutral.

 

Lazy mans way would be to find a hill and roll down doing the same test and compare speed at a fixed point.

 

If you start the car in gear, on a flat surface,( with the pedal pushed) does it try to move just a tiny bit?

^This will tell you if it's clutch drag for sure. Another really easy way to detect it, if you have no brake drag, is to stop on a level surface off the brakes, and try shifting into 1st and reverse. If you feel a bump or the car moves at all while you're doing this, that's a sure sign that the clutch is still engaged somewhat while the pedal is fully depressed.