Noise from transmission area

I “think” this pic is at driver’s side, front wheel well, wheel and plastic liner removed, looking in horizontally?

 

Yeah you don't need to be looking down there you're not looking at anything that needs to be seen that's just the side or the end of your transmission nothing's happening there stand up and look right in between the engine and the transmission put your hand in there if you like there's nothing moving you'll just feel vibration what's your feeling is an imbalance between the engine and the torque plate and more than likely the torque plate springs are slamming completely compressed and that's the rattling that you're hearing I do believe it's pretty common in this system it's a bunch of cow dung you can spend a whole bunch of money to keep the car if it's really nice but if it's got regular generation 3 problems probably not a thing to be doing but that's a personal choice I can't help you with.

 

Any follow up on this?

 

Is this the same car that had the bad head gasket that Medal linked to in post #5?

If it is the same car, did you replace the head gasket or replace the engine?

 

There is no torque converter in a Prius. What you do have is a damper between the engine and the transaxle. The damper springs could be damaged on your damper due to continued usage of the car when you have a bad head gasket.

 

or continued usage with misfiring going on, whatever the cause

 

And if you keep on it will throw a rod so how long have you been driving with this condition going on and if you could take a guess how many hours do you think the engine has run rattling ours didn't make 4 hours maybe total over quite some time and this is trying to think about this properly and make an accurate estimate is by no mean scientific so your engine is shaking itself to death every time it rattles it is putting a pretty good load on connecting rods and things internally so if this has been going on for some time don't even waste time with the head gasket business pull the engine out of the car flip it over bust it apart take a look inside if not find a replacement engine which is tricky just because of the popularity and it's in America everything you're going to find in the state is going to have over 100,000 miles on it almost guaranteed so there's always that I don't know how a new engine assembly would go block and head from who Toyota itself I can't even imagine five grand who knows certainly wouldn't seem to be worth it for the car's base value but that's in the eye of the beholder I guess