Skid Plate Clunking Noise

I'm pretty sure it's the skid plate at this point. Heres a video which you can kinda hear the noise under acceleration. I think the phone mic's is either muffled or thinks the clunking is unintentional background noise.
http://youtu.be/EqGSFpuLsEc

Full story is we took drove the Bug up to Monroe, WA over the weekend for an Audi car control school. The morning before the school I did a 50/50 grind with the Bug on this short curb. Between the lack of sleep and deep snow I thought the hump was just dug out from tire tracks. We finished the school with some autocross and that's when I started to notice the rattle. At this point wasn't sure if it was from me hitting the curb or the cones!



Heres the current gap between the skid plate and pendulum mount. I torqued all the motor/transmission mounts and drove the Bug with no clunking noise in 1st and 2nd gear. Added the skid plate back on and the noise was there right away.



I took some pictures of the how I got to the mounts but I'm too lazy to actually right something up but someone might find it useful.
https://plus.google.com/photos/1121...ms/5979778362303204369?authkey=CJ_UtsLt1JyOCg

Skid plate at a glance doesn't seem bent. Rear axel looks fine too. I didn't notice the car handling differently but I'll check the alignment for kicks after I pound out the plate a bit.

Must have bent the skidplate a bit or something. Have a close look at it when you take it off to look for rub marks and under the car.

Also consider your motor mounts probably have a bit more wear possibly and may be allowing the engine more movement.

grab a couple of washers and place them between the skid plate and the car, this worked for me when I was having skid plate noise issues.

So dropped the skid plate and it was actually very straight. There wasn't really anything I could pound out. So we opted to replace the motor mounts which wasn't too terrible of a job. Good news is the rattle is gone and the car seems quieter. They probably needed to be done after 200k miles anyways.

Just wanted to follow up in case anyone else ever finds this post.

A so-called "skid plate" is superfluous. So remove it ASAP!!!

this just helped me realize why I'm having some rattle thanks! Had just put my panzer plate back on recently after having it off since December or so. This talk about the washers made me remember we had stuck a washer on the passenger side bolt since originally there was some rattle, didn't put that on when I put the plate on the other day. Getting some kind of rattle in lower gears around 2000 rpms, that I didn't previously have. Might find some washers and see if that'll fix it!