mystery bolt

This morning I had to take off my rear skid to do rack and pinion bushings, and this bolt came rolling down onto my chest. No clue where it came from and I couldn’t see any empty bolt holes just by looking around. I know it’s a long shot, but any ideas as to where its supposed to go? And is it a big deal if I just forget about it…?

2004 prerunner v6 trd

 

in every vehicle i've ever modified, i've always ended up with a small container of random pieces. some i know where they go and forgot to put them back in, others 'just appeared'...

as long as the truck doesn't fall apart, or make new noises, it's fine to put in the junk drawer.

 

10 mm head right? Yer fucked, could be most of the truck.

 

Not too many hex heads. Is that a 3/8”? Hard to tell from the photo

 

Sure looks like a body panel bolt. Could be a ground strap bolt or a transmission pan bolt.

Just tossing darts here. It's about the most common bolt on the truck.

 

You should really take off the whole skid as one piece, it's no fun trying to get the the back one to clip back in right when the front one is already mounted. You may have to pull the front skid anyway to access the front of the 141 ft/lb main rack bolt.

Anyway it's definitely not one of the skid bolts, they have a slight taper to them. If you don't see anything missing, who knows. It could be someone dropped a bolt and couldn't find it and just replaced it. It looks to be a light duty bolt, like the ones that attach the wiper washer reservoir, for example. 10MM?

 

Looks like a transmission pan bolt

 

Skid plate masybey?

 

That is the bolt of doom. It holds the dumaflache and connects the thingamajig to the whichamacallet. Catastrophic failure is near. Since you are a TW guy if you want to sign the pink slip over to me I’d be happy to haul the truck away for you. Just let me know. In the meantime get yourself , family and pets out of the area