These can be taken from a newer machine, the design that gave the best motor protection was the last design where it attached to the left edge of the cabinet, to use this style on an older machine you do have to drill one small hole in he cabinet edge.

You certainly can use the washer without this shield, but if you like to over-suds your washer or suffer a water level control or inlet valve  malfunction it could damage the motor. It was amazing that MT did not have an overflow path for the water in the event of an overflow, I don't think that I ever saw another washer design that had such a poor plan for overflows. It is one of the major reasons that MT DC washers when through so many motors as many were damaged by water, bleach and detergent, and then it got EVEN worse when they moved the bleach dispenser inlet to the left side directly above the motor, then we really started replacing motors.

And guys I am not just picking on Maytag, Whirlpool BD washers had major weakness such the lack of a system to keep the belt tight and poor durability water pumps and there scrubber on the top of the tub ring was never a great system.

And GE FF washers had some very major design flaws. You could be washing your first ever load in a GE FF and if it goes badly out of balance the inner tub striking the outer tub would immediately cause the porcelain enamel to fail and the outer tub and edge of the wash basket would start rusting. GE also should have scrapped their silly  2,3,4  and variable speed clutches in the early 1960s, The Frigidaire 1-18s never needed these silly clutches to give a lower wash and spin speed, in fact they deliberately used the low motor speed to drain, to minimize the problem of lint redepositing on clothing during the pump out phase of the spin cycle.