Totally a hypothetical question ;)

rumblefish360 said

If you just simply drive the car, the trans may very well be OK. I’d do what Rainy said and pull the pan to check it.

I destroyed a trans due to self inflicted shoddy work in a rush. 20 miles around town in 2 days and I was looking at junk connected to the engine.

In another incident, it was fine. The difference was the trans wasn’t subjected to a lot of around town driving but just light throttle cruising on the Hwy. low stress, low speed.

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Well grace may be on my side then. I just wanted to get the Dart home on the 500 mile trip. So I babied it. No burnouts or pedal to the floor take-offs. Mostly highway cruising at 55 except for about 15 miles of interstate in Nebraska at 70 or so. But I have driven about 40 miles total in town. I tended to shift it manually because I knew something wasn't right. I wonder if that is enough to have not destroyed it.

Like I said, nothing in the pan when I changed the AT filter. It was still driving "fine" when I parked it a few weeks ago. That's when I realized I didn't have the linkage anymore.