My clutch has been acting weird lately. I haven't driven the car much because the clutch has not been fully disengaging, therefore I cannot get it in or out of gear.

Here is my confusion. Yesterday I went to move it in the garage to begin work on it. I started it and it generally had the same symptoms, would not go into gear smoothly with the clutch pedal fully depressed. Also, the clutch pedal was not returning all the way up. I get it in the garage and start snooping around to try and find some leaks around the clutch system. I opened the clutch fluid resevior, followed all the lines down to the slave cylinder and no where does it feel or look like fresh fluid. Besides that the fluid is not low. I get under the dash and start playing with the clutch pedal itself. Looking for an adjustment screw. Nothing out of the ordinary.

I go in the house to take a pee, come back out and the clutch pedal has returned to its full "up" position and the clutch is now working perfect. Shifts fine and easy. Also where the clutch engages relative to the position of the pedal has changed. Just 1/2 hour before the clutch would engage with the pedal way down just barely off the floor. Now the clutch does not engage until the pedal is about 1/2 way up. WTF???

I am concluding that the pressure plate or clutch disc is grabbing, sticking and not fully releasing from time to time.

What do you think?

Oh well that has to be the...ummmmmm...yeah that's screwed up. I'm gonna say maybe something was going on with clutch reservior, like pressure built up inside it or something. And taking off the cap to check it fixed it. But who cares, it works now, right?

I would think of a hyrdaulic release problem first.

Try taking a look at your slave cylinder and make sure the clutch system is properly bled.
Besides doing that, the only thing I can think of at this moment is maybe the slave cylinder rod is seated weird and is not catching the fork properly everytime. There is a rubber boot around the rod that helps guide the thing. If it isn't put in properly, it could cause the rod to miss the fork and not disengage the clutch properly upon application of pressure to the clutch pedal.
When I removed my slave cylinder and then replaced it, I had to be careful to make sure it aligned correctly. The first two times I tried bleeding the clutch, I got proper disengagement once or twice, and then the rod must have slipped off the fork because it was not in the proper groove. Of course, after you have it lined up correctly, you have to bleed the system.

After some more tests here is what I found. I bled the system by pushing the clutch pedal down. This is the normal procedure.

Well I figured out that this didn't really work. So I bled the clutch by pushing the slave cylinder rod in. This fixed the problem. But only temporarily. So I figured bad slave.

Last night drained all fluid. Removed slave cylinder and intsalled a rebuld kit. Everything looked fine on the inside of slave cylinder. Installed new stuff and it seems to fit tight (meaning good). Installed and bled the entire system once again.

The clutch pedal actually feels like a clutch pedal again. I haven't driven it yet but just sitting in driveway with engine on I can now shift into reverse w/o turning engine off. It shifts very smooth now.
Woohoo. Now on to other stuff as I restore the beaten car.

Brian