ok, replaced my shortblock in my car. Just got it out today, but it wont shift. Its a T5. If the car is turned off, it shifts just fine, but with the car running, you cant get it to go into gear! What did i fudge up?
rule of thumb is the tob should be 1/8 inch from the pressure plate arms, and the firewall adjuster should be about 1/4 inch gap adjusted out, but that can all vary depending the cable, and other tolerances
You can test the cable/quadrant theory so long as there are teeth still on your stock quadrant (even with all the teeth the auto adjustment feature is junk). Push your drivers side seat all the way back. Open the door and lay on the floor so you can see the quadrant. Push in the clutch pedal and HOLD or PUSH the little plastic hook attatched to the quadrant UP with your thumb as you push the pedal back towards the rear of the car. You'll hear the quadrant 'racheting' when you do this. This will tighten your cable. Tighten it too much and your clutch will never fully engage. Not enough and you'll have a problem like the one you describe in your post. This fix is only temporary because the first time you pull the clutch pedal all the way back out or let off of it quickly that junk auto adjust feature will undue what you've just done. Still: it's a great way to find out if replacing the cable and quadrant is what you need to do to fix your problem without spending the money up front. Hope this helps.