Clutch pedal sticking

[Tom3001]

Hi,

Apologies if this has been covered lots in the past. 

Car is a 2003 1.9tdi Audi A3. My clutch pedal started sticking one morning out of the blue. It did it a little bit on the way to work, but got worse on the way back and almost undrivable by the time I was home. I had to hook my foot under the pedal to get it to return and it was really hard to get into gear by the end.

I had a quick look at the master cylinder and pedal linkage and nothing obvious there. No fluid leakage visible and seemed to operate alright. No change in the fluid level when I pumped the pedal and little, if no fluid loss from the reservoir at all.

No change in clutch with pumping pedal, but bearing type noise when releasing clutch to binding point. 

After some reading I found that it has a concentric slave cylinder (is combined with the clutch release bearing/one in the same unit), so decided to bite the bullet and drop the gearbox (bit of a !Removed! with a trolley jack and car on axle stands. If anyone ever does it 100% remove the input/output flanges btw, wouldnt go otherwise, not without a transmission jack to angle the box. You also have to turn the whole gearbox a good 60 degrees + to get clearance). 

Clutch had plenty of life left in it and no no obvious problems with the dual mass flywheel. I didnt pull the flywheel to check the pilot bearing, but probably should have. I also didnt change the input shaft bearing either, which I also probably should have done as it does make some rattley noises from the transmission ticking over. No performance issues whatsoever though, until this happened. The car has done 170000 miles and the reason Im sorting myself, is because I cant afford to pay out for a garage to fix it, it would be a right off. Im trying to keep as cheap as possible, with the minimum time spent doing it. If I took it to a garage, theyd no doubt say change the flywheel and clutch as milage so high and still on original as far as I know.

Transmission is back on and engine back on its mounts, just got to put the rest back together during the week. 

My question is, how can you differentiate between master, or slave cylinder malfunction, for future reference? Im going to be gutted if it turns out to be the master!

Thanks,

Tom