OP here hopefully reviving this thread... did not abandon, just busy with life and doing a lot of other things to the car as well.
Thanks Gforce for those pics with the measurement to the release fork for good and bad scenarios, I already had the transmission pulled assuming I was going to find a mess in there. The fork and bullet bullet stud looked great, the through out bearing was creased a bit, but not bad. Pressure plate tines were not appreciably thinned out from bearing. Clutch was amazingly in good shape yet. BUT, I had all new stuff, including a new clutch and pressure plate (stiffer stage 2). The clutch did not fit with my G60 so I put the old (good) one back in with new pressure plate, new main seal, fork, stud, bearing.
Took a lot of measurements of the new parts and very little difference from old. BUT, put a thick washer under stud just in case, to make sure the clutch released before pedal all the way to the floor. Well, after all together, the measurement per the Gforce pic is 3/4 inch, not 1/2 inch as shown. But I can't imagine that is a problem. Anyways, tested the car and no different than before I did all this. Basically identical, possibly a bit worse.
OK, now changed the clutch master cylinder. Feeling how "tight" the plunger felt compared with the "loose" old one, thought this would be the ticket. No difference at all. Seriously?? Changed out the old slave with new one. Worse. continued soft pedal feel. Did not release the clutch to get it in gear at all. Spent a LOT of effort bleeding, including reverse bleeding to remove the potential air bubble in the master... never had any air bubbles come into the reservoir. Put the old slave back in, and better, firmer clutch pedal, though still a bit soft at first, but of course it SHOULD be easier at first since the pressure plate tines have not moved much yet. I've swapped out the old and new slave about 4 times now, every time the old works way better.
Just seems like there is not enough fluid flowing to move that release fork enough. Seems like it needs more fluid flow from the master. No brake fluid leaking anywhere by the way. Earlier I had blocked off the slave and the clutch felt quite hard. But I got a new slave anyways, just in case.
So basically everything is new in the entire system. It's kicking my butt. How do you get more motion of that slave plunger? I'm about as confident as I can be that there is no air in system. I even compressed and blocked off slave, then bled, to make sure there is no pocket of air left in the slave since the plunger is part way out to make contact with release fork when it's installed, and I figured it's possible that bleeding it in that static configuration will not remove a pocket of air in the slave, but just move the upstream fluid. I've never seen that mentioned before. But in any case, it made no difference.
Do I need a certain brand of master/slave? My new slave being worse makes me wonder if one needs to just keep buying new ones until you happen to get a quality one that works correctly? That's pathetic of course. Bought Bently manual set, and read everything I can on the forums, and I feel like I've done everything, but obviously not, since no improvement. I can't think of anything other than throwing NEW new parts at it. Is that 3/4 inch gap to the fork too much, even after I put in a washer under stud? Should not have to lift the stud with all new parts.
This post is way too long. I'm venting. Would love any suggestions.