Bmw doesn’t go into gear when running and pedal is hard to push. Need help.

I have a 2003 bmw 325i, one day I started the car and I couldn’t put it in gear no matter what I did. I pulled the transmission twice already and replaced the clutch, pressure plate, throw out bearing, master clutch cylinder, slave cylinder, and fully bled it. The second time I pulled it, the fingers on the new pressure plate where are pushed in for some reason, so I thought maybe I just received and defective pressure plate and the old one didn’t even look bad so I thought maybe the problem wasn’t even the pressure plate to begin with. But now it’s still doing the same thing, won’t go into gear and pedal hard to push. Any feedback would be helpful, thanks.

Describe that more fully, please. What do you mean, pushed in? Permanently AFTER you removed the pressure plate from the flywheel? Or did they pop back when you removed the pressure plate? Did you compare the old throwout bearing with the new one before installing it? Did you check the pilot that the throwout bearing rides on for grooves and burrs before installing a new one?

You don’t mention anything about the flywheel.

If the vehicle has a dual mass flywheel, that could be worn out.

Tester

Permanently, they did not pop back out, old throw out bearing looked bad but I replaced it and as for the pilot, I looked over it a little and it seemed fine.

You didn’t answer all my questions. For the one you did, you broke a brand new pressure plate. Either it was faulty new in the box or you overtraveled the throwout bearing and broke it. If that was the case, likely the brake master is not correct and has a too large bore for the car. Each part you replaced needs to match the part you removed.

The bigger problem is that you didn’t correctly diagnose the problem. Did you check to see if the transmission turned by hand, shifted gears znd still turned in each gear!

Maybe it is as simple as a binding clutch cable.

Barkydog, you are not paying attention. :wink: OP replaced master and slave cylinders. This is a hydraulic clutch. There is no cable.

When you had the flywheel off, did you look at the pivot point for the clutch actuation arm? The original one was nylon and those tend to mash down after a few years. They are normally replaced whenever the clutch is replaced. Some folks replace the nylon part with brass. I stick with nylon because I don’t want a rattle.

At first when it wouldn’t go into gear, did pushing on the clutch pedal still feel normal? If so, that might have been caused by a faulty clutch master cylinder. And the current problems due to faulty replacement parts or installation problems; e.g. the transmission/clutch isn’t properly aligned w/the engine making the transmission input shaft bind in the center of the flywheel. There’s one weird engine thing that can could clutch symptoms I’d guess, if the crankshaft had too much play in the axial direction, due to a thrust bearing fault. Seems pretty unlikely on a 2003 though. Have you installed a clutch/transmission before? If not, try that part again, and this time get an experienced helper to advise on how to get it all properly aligned.