SOLVED: Mystery screw! Look familiar?

Greased driveline yesterday. Everyone's favorite, saw this random screw, sitting below my passenger LCA/LBJ. Countersunk flathead, machine or metric thread, maybe stainless. Looks brand spanking new.

This comes on the heels of me installing Toytec Aluma Boss coilovers, SuspensionMaxx links, SPC uppers, Method 305s. There's nothing in my garage I've worked on recently that uses this type of fastener. Does it ring a bell to anyone?

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It does look new.....doesn't really even look like an automotive screw to me.....I bet it just got lost from some hardware kit from some random item you unpacked or put together in your garage at some point. I have a huge jar in my shop of all the junk screws that come with everything I buy that I never use.

 

It looks too new and shiny to be off the exterior of any vehicle. I’ve never bothered to look, but what size of fastener is used to attach the rubber protector to the lower ball joint (2004-2006 models)?

 

Yeah, I rarely unpack anything inside the garage, which is why it's weird. I have a shop space with all my coffee cans and trays full of hardware. And nothing with hardware like this. You'd hafta see the garage - there's so much stuff (or was until I sold stuff today) it'd be virtually impossible for something to've bounced laterally under the truck, behind the tire. It'd have to fall from above to be in this spot.

Not sure. I didn't think about that either. But the fact it's brand new looking and shows no wear inside the head is suspect, the only thing new enough on my truck is the items I mentioned earlier: Links, UCA, coilovers. I'm wondering if maybe it was a factory hitchhiker from Toytec, or maybe even Elka when they shipped the coilovers to Toytec? Dunno. Weird.

 

Note to self: throw random loose screws and hardware under people's cars to make them scratch their heads when they find them.

 

Someone played that game with me using anti-freeze before because I parked in their parking lot for their car wash business. Pink fluid running from a pool underneath my engine down the hill when I came out of Dunkin Donuts.

Looked under my truck there and when I got home. No leaks.

 

Could it be from one of the tools you were recently using when you did your coil overs? Somebody here a few weeks ago had a mystery screw that turned out to be from a tool.

 

That's a good thought! I could see that popping off a large ratchet or torque wrench possibly.

 

Shit. I bet this is from my new harbor freight floor jack. SOB. You're probably right. I remember that damn thread, now you mention it. Or at least someone on here had a screw from their HF jack. I think this may be the screw that holds the thin steel cover over the hydraulic cylinder. I'll hafta look.

 

The steel cover on my Napa floor jack is halfway falling down. I can only assume that the screw that holds it in place fell out years ago. I keep forgetting to reattach it.

 

@TILLY wins. Note what’s missing. Sure enough, that was it. Hot damn. I actually read the other thread where the other person had a screw fall off their HF jack within the last year or so, you’d have thought this would’ve registered!

 

Nice, that would have bugged me as well.

 

SCREWS FALL OUT ALL THE TIME. THE WORLD IS AN IMPERFECT PLACE - Bender