There was a guy from Australia on here not long ago, and he worked and worked on the same problem. Turned out it was mostly the motor and trans misaligned with the body. The Z- bar was not properly level and that will take away from some of the throw capability of the linkage. The fact that your throwout bearing is almost at the fingers, and the clutch pedal is not coming up all the way says you have a short or misaligned linkage issue or throwout arm/ pivot issue.
Any pix you could post might help.
