[Prong]

From my understanding, those rods are to help support the tranny because of the length between the rear mount and the block. I've heard reports and talked to one guy that had it happen to him where the tranny case will crack without those supports because the tranny case is basically unsupported because of the way it mounts to the t/c case (hope that makes sense).

P.S. My 79 has only 2 rods, IIRC. A long one like yours in the pic, and a second shorter one. If you want, I can try to get a pic of it tomorrow for you.