Random question for a friend

So a friend of mine has been having some car trouble. It's not a cavi but basically what happened is he first started noticing he had to give the car more gas to get it to accelerate like normal (it's a manual). so he drove it like normal and then said he started to smell smoke when he was on the way to class and figured he'd just throw his hazards on on his way home. well when he went to reverse out of the parking spot to leave, the engine just revved and didn't move the car at all. he said he has no problems switching gears or anything and thinks it's his clutch. so any suggestions on what it could be?

Most likely the clutch, if he still has all gears thats a good thing.

ok i guess that's not too crappy. the place he went to quoted him 850 to fix. how hard would it be to do himself?

FWD or RWD?

and it also depends on his automobile knowledge and if he has all the tools to make life easy. I could drop the auto transmission in a J and re-install in about 6-7hrs taking my time. A clutch and fly wheel all need to be torqued to spec with torque wrench and lock-tite used on the bolts. They are torque to spec so he will need to get new ones from dealership too. You can reuse the old ones, i personally wouldn't.