My clutch failure followed serious abuse (Double Whammy, in Moab), and was accompanied by a smoke cloud. I burn and glazed the friction material, and heat-checked the flywheel and friction plate... but made it up the obstacle. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/pfft.gif" alt="" /> This is a pretty standard failure mode... catastrophic failure (ejection of friction material) is reasonable rare, but you might want to plan the repair in the near future since the problem is likely to progressively worsen.

If your pressure plate is within spec and is not heat-checked, you can re-use it. I always assess based on the pain-in-the-butt factor, and generally replace the full set of consumables, though, just to guarantee that I won't have to repeat the repair later. YMMV.

BTW, your Frankenstein sounds like a cool project. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Randii