Its difficult to speculate. Most of us don't have experience with the long term effects of running a clutch with a bent pp finger.

You won't know until you remove trans and inspect. Thats free if diy. I would start there.

Can we get Billman in here? I feel like he would be the one most knowledgeable of this.

I'm just trying to get any solid information before I spend a whole day or get stuck for 2 weeks again without a car and screwing everyone around me. No, I won't know but at least I'll have a better idea of how important it is to do asap or in 3 months.

to me this sounds very important and I would. It drive the car any more for the risk if you doing more damage to the transmission or engine. If you wait a few months and continue to drive the car best case scenario is you don't do any addition damage but worst case scenario is the nose gets worst and you damage the transmission to the point you need a new one. Or worse the bent clutch some how warps your crankshaft and you need a new engine. If I was you I would throw the car on jack stands and pull the transmission tonight.

Ugh. *Blows brains out*. I hate that you're right. I won't have time to do it these next couple days due to a full schedule of college. Plus I won't be able to get a clutch kit shipped in good time if I started tonight so hopefully in the next couple weeks. The motorcycle I've been craving for the past year would be extremely helpful right now.

Last time I saw this problem, the starter was loose, and the flywheel was sawing through the nose of the starter.

Be sure it's tight.

I can always count on Billman to provide the information I want! Thank you, sir! I'll check that asap!

Do you mean the intense grinding after 5.3k could be caused by the starter being loose or only the light grinding?

The top starter bolt was about 1/4" loose. That was very absurd to me, but I tightened it and immediately went for a drive. The issue persists. What next, Billman? Can I check or try anything else before draining the tranny fluid and checking for metal, then replacing the clutch and P/P?

How likely is it that I would need to replace the whole transmission rather than just the clutch and P/P?