Sticks and stones will ... get stuck in my tranny mount
 

Two days ago I was driving the 87 down the fun-but-perilous backroads, and right before the turn-in to my neighborhood, came around a sharp turn and ran right over a long-but-skinny (and dead) branch in the road. Wheel got most of it and it split into a few pieces and flew out behind me, but I could hear it kind of scrap the undercarraige. First thing I did was inspect the oil pan and transmission pan, then looked around pretty carefully for other damage. Everything was A-OK. The next day when I went to start it up to go to work, I noticed a real low humming vibration at idle (just idle). My guess was maybe a tiny exhaust leak or something, so I checked beneath again. Turned out there was a thin 8-10-inch piece of stick stuck up in the transmission mount! Pulled it out, no more vibration (I think the stick was just vibrating with the mount, and acting like a little musical instrument, ha).

The point of my long exciting story is: Could the stick have caused any damage I should look for? I'm going to do the flex discs and a tran fluid/filter change this week anyway, so I'll take a good look. This was a really thin stick, so if it had touched the tranny yoke or driveshaft the stick would have been annihilated. I think it was just taking a ride.

I think you're right. I'd do a thorough look since you're going to be under there anyways, but I'd bet you're safe.

Now you know how the tranny mount flexes. And since you have discovered that there are open spaces in that mount, you can be fairly sure that there is no damage.

Yeah, the nerd in me was actually kind of fascinated by it. You don't realize how much vibration and motion the mount absorbs until you put a stick in it. Guess I was pretty lucky! It ended up being a good reminder that I need to throw this car up on ramps and take car of some maintenance anyway. I have a set of flex discs and a idler arm rebuild kit just begging to be installed.:cool: