<VV> question about pressure plate fingers

[NicolCS at aol.com]

It sounds like a previous mechanic bent the diaphragm spring.  This  is 
pretty easy to do if you don't first finger-tighten each of the PP bolts,  then go 
around the six bolts, tightening them 1/4 turn at a time until they are  all 
bottomed, then torquing them to 25 ft/lbs. You need a new clutch cover, or  
better yet, a rebuilt and properly shimmed PP assembly.  If you put it  together 
as-is, you run a very high risk of an incomplete clutch release leading  to 
grinding gears during shifting and difficult to engage first and  reverse.  
Definitely worth fixing now.
Craig Nicol
65,66,67 140/4s

I've been working on my flywheel and pressure  plate, rectifying the strange 
job done by the PO, and I've run across a  "problem" that might not be a 
problem.  If I bolt the pressure plate to  the flywheel *without* the clutch 
disk inserted, the fingers on the flywheel  are not all the same height, with 
a variation of about 1/8".  If I  insert the clutch, the fingers even out 
somewhat, but there is still a  variation of about 1/16".  This is very 
noticeable if I spin the  assembly (I used a spare fan and blower bearing as 
described in the Tech  Manual).   How close is close enough? Thanks, John  
McMahon