Sounds like the throwout bearing to me too.

 

It has 90k miles and has been driven fairly hard. I do double clutch when I downshift...maybe all that clutching wore something out early.

I checked and both the master and slave cylinders seem to be okay (not leaking). I also replaced the clutch fluid; the old stuff was really nasty but the new fluid didn't change anything.

I investigated the sound some more and I'm convinced it's coming from the clutch area. When I press too far I hear a slight rubbing sound and whatever is touching is causing something to slow down (and I can hear that) and then 'it' stops spinning -- once it stops spinning (and the sounds stops) is when I can no longer get my car into gear (unless I slightly let up on the clutch pedal...then I presume whatever stopped starts spinning again and sliding it in gear is easy again). I think I'm going to install something to make my pedal stop-point slightly 'higher' than it is now to avoid the noise. If anyone has an idea to what is actually going on in my cltuch please let me know! Thanks...

 

If what you described is what's really happening, then the throwout bearing is travelling so far that the pressure plate fingers are touching the friction disk hub, preventing a proper "clutch" position. I'm not sure what would cause that, but it is plausible.

 

1stGenCRXer,
By friction disk you mean clutch plate, right? If so, that makes sense. Now if I just knew why! I guess it could be one/some of the fingers on my clutch plate is/are deformed in such a way that the throwout bearing if pushing it far enough to touch the clutch plate, or maybe the throwout bearing is just travelling too far (like you said). If the later, how could this happen? I can't seem to find any way to adjust it (other than some or physically stop the pebal sooner). Just what controls how far the throwout bearing moves in relation to depressing the clutch? Now I am back to wondering if my MC or SC somehow has become defective and is allowing too much travel.

 

Well I finally did it. I've only driven the car a couple times, but it seems to back to normal now (with my fix installed). I also feel certain that this problem isn't related to the clutch plate being overly worn because the clutch still grabs well and doesn't seem to slip. I still wish I knew exactly what's going on though...