Could a bad pressure plate still look good?
I've changed out the clutch a few times over the past 10 years and seen a few used but functioning pressure plates. On another occasion World Speed swapped out the diff case for me and sent back the pressure plate marked "good spare". And the only time I actually had to change the clutch, the pressure plate fingers were sprung and obviously distorted. So I thought I knew what a good vs bad pressure plate looks like.
The big picture is that the clutch simply won't completely disengage. And it happened overnight: it worked perfectly on a Friday test day followed by a 3 session Saturday race day, then did not work at all first thing Sunday morning. No way to get it into reverse and only into first with a lot of grinding and "gnashing of teeth", both it's teeth and ours. After doing all the adjustments and checks we and some 20+ year FM guys could think of, no change. So we raced it 3 sessions on Sunday with the problem.
I have now gone thru the entire system, reinstalling the pressure plate and disk since they were fairly fresh (8 hours) and looked good to not only me, but other FM guys and my local speed shop guru. I concluded the problem was the throwout bearing since they always look funky to me and because I had not replaced it last time. Everything else looked fine and it went back together normally.
So when I jumped in it for the test, (on stands in the garage, motor completely cold), it worked fine, (well nearly fine since I've never compared the clutch to a Swiss watch.) Warmed it up just a little, drove it down the street and within 4-5 shifts (into 1st then reverse), it stopped working again.
The master cylinder is fairly fresh (8 hours), not a drop of fluid lost and I swapped out the slave cylinder with my buddy's perfectly good one. Also I've adjusted the linkage to both extremes. The pedal pressure is normal. And still no difference.
So I'm wondering if it is the pressure plate even though it looks good. I'll call Kennedy on Monday, but I thought I'd check in here.
So, what am I missing? And yes, I am ready to slap my forehead.
Hopefully, TIA.