Which way did the broken piece flow?

In the middle of my coolant leak repair on my 4.7 v8 and I notice a bit of a chunk missing out of the end of the housing for the thermostat. Then I thought maybe it could be the rattling I was hearing for a while upon startup that randomly went away one day.
There is some damage on the inside of the housing & the thermostat so I replaced them both but it worries me what else that little chunk can damage so I want to try and locate it and get it removed ASAP. On the other end of the housing there’s more scratches so it appears it made it past the thermostat.

Any thoughts on where it could have gone? Anything it could get hung up on?

thanks everyone!

 

The upper is the outlet. It's in the radiator top tank somewhere most likely.

 

Yea likely in the radiator, I’d pull it and flip it upside down, probably come right out.

 

I will try that, thank you

 

Bottom of the radiator?
That piece goes to the lower rad hose.

 

Hmm. Now I need to remember coolant flow of the 4.7… if that’s the bottom that may be the inlet. If that’s the case the piece would of been on the thermostat. Which it wouldn’t get past.

honestly it probably broke long ago on someone and was just throw together without it in the system

 

There are marks on the other side of the thermostat so something was definitely in there bouncing around.

that’s the part that stumps me tho. did the previous owner notice it and pull it out? Is it stuck somewhere? Or is it still floating around? About 5 months ago I had a loud rattle upon startup. It sounded like a loose chain flapping around. Even as it idled you could still here something that sounds like metal being tossed around. I tried to locate it but never could and a couple months later it stopped out of nowhere. Since the I’ve only heard it a few times but not as bad.

is there a possibility it could have slipped passed the thermostat and worked it’s way down to the water pump?

 

Here’s the old thermostat. There’s a there’s a tear in the rubber

 

if it had made it to the pump you would be dealing with a grenaded water pump

 

thats usually how thermostats past their prime work. my 05s looked very similar

 

So, gravity would have sank it to the bottom of the rad, is there enough flow to pick it up?

 

eh.. depends on the size of the piece. if its one solid chunk probably not. if it broke in multiple pieces maybe

 

I just removed the radiator and there was nothing in it. Judging from the damage either it went past the thermostat or it was removed by someone else. Since I don’t have the time to go down that far into the motor and I haven’t really had any performance issues I’m just going to see what happens. I plan on changing out the timing & water pump in a couple months so ill give an update when I do.