That 10.5 is fine. The racing clutches are 10.5. for a 318 it's more than enough.
Look up inside the bottom of the bell housing and look at the 3 clutch fingers. (You have a Borg and Beck clutch right) (3 fingers). Use a spotlight if you have to. I bet that they are touching the pressure plate cover. That means that the fingers are bottoming out before they put full pressure on the disk. That is like driving with your foot pushing on the clutch pedal a little bit. So................. ,,,,,, If you didn't SMOKE your clutch too much by driving around more and more hoping that your problem would correct itself, you can still save it by reaching in there with a box ended wrench and loosen the 3 pivot adjusting nuts an equal amount until you can see a little gap between the fingers and the clutch hat. You will have to use a big socket and breaker bar in the front to turn the engine to get to all 3 fingers unless you have a flywheel rotating tool. That should fix you up.
Oh, BTW. those Bolt heads are thin but go down inside with more threads so don't think the heads will come off unless you turn them all the way out. By the sound of your problem, you probably only have to turn them 1 or 2 turns at the most.
Rob
