[Excaliber]

No adjustment on the clutch? I don't believe that and it don't sound right. IF there is no adjustment, the clutch release mechanism was not engineered correctly. As the new clutch breaks in you WILL want to adjust freeplay on the pedal.

Throw out bearing riding on the pressure plate release fingers will prematurely burn out the bearing, in time! Unless it's riding REAL HARD against the pressure plate fingers it will not harm the plate or the clutch disc in any way. Grooves in the pressure plate would have little or nothing to do with the throw out bearing. Sounds like the whole thing is "mis-aligned". Scatter shield bell houseing? Align to within .005" as measured with a dial indicator and using offset dowels or whatever to align.