I think the clips you’re wondering about hold the pressure plate in a little bit for installation, here’s a picture of a new early 935 pressure plate with the clips I installed as part of a shortened G50 conversion.
As I remember, you could install it without the clips but the throw out bearing would hit on the clutch disc until the pressure plate was fully torqued down, if you got it torqued down without the clips it’s ok and is probably not what is causing your problem.
I’d look elsewhere.
Good Luck.
