Mystery Shrapnel

['84 Ranger]

I have an 84 Ranger 2.0 RWD with a Toyo Kogo 4 speed manual transmission. About 3 days ago I heard a whining sound from my transmission. I immediately stopped and had my truck towed to where I work. I got my truck on the hoist and proceeded to remove the bottom cover and rear housing and found this (see link) jammed in my reverse gears. I can clearly see the stress marks on the object and where it snapped off. But I can not find where the piece came from in the transmission. I have no idea how vital this piece is to the performance of my transmission or what purpose it served. My best guess is it has to do with distributing the gear lube through that part of the transmission, but that's only a guess. Have any of you seen something like this before or have any idea where this piece came from in my transmission?(I'm still driving my truck, so far no problems or other symptoms.) http://www.facebook.com/album.php?id=524428409&aid=349850

 

[RangerBoy94]

Shrapnel??? Sounds like someone threw a hand gernade in you trans!!!!

 

['84 Ranger]

LOL, maybe shrapnel is the wrong word to use. It's actually only one piece. For those of you who don't have facebook, the piece is black, roughly 1"x.5" and roughly 1-2.5 32nds in thickness. I was going to upload the photo here but the file size was too big and I'm not computer savvy so I couldn't resize it.

 

[martin]

Could it be a magnet?

 

['84 Ranger]

Nope, it's not a magnet.