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My wife usually drives our '87 744 non-turbo with the ZF auto trans. She'd been driving it with no problems for a good while when, a couple of weeks ago, she had to make an emergency stop because she heard metal on metal. Uh-oh! I met her right away, bumped the starter, and heard a hellish racket. I figured the starter solenoid was toast and the starter gear was hitting the driveplate. I let the motor cool down, tried it again, and the car started right up. I drove it the couple miles to home but I also heard a light metallic scraping that sounded like something was just barely dragging on the ground and seemed to be located just under the shifter. I bought a new starter and just finished putting it in twenty minutes ago. After I got the old one out I took a peek at the ring gear and was relieved to find it appearing OK. However, my heart skipped a beat when I saw what must have been making the original noise. Lying right in the housing where the starter gear sits was a tiny, mangled bolt! I'm looking at it right now and it looks to be about 3/4" long, probably has a 10mm hex with an integral washer, and slightly larger than 1/4" diameter threads. Does anyone have any thoughts on where this bugger came from? I did have the rear crank seal replaced about a year ago but the tranny has definitely not been off since then. The plastic shield under the torque converter is there. This is a light-weight bolt and doesn't look like anything that came from inside the motor or tranny. Should I have my mechanic take a deeper look?
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