I noticed my front driver side axle inner boot was torn and leaking so I went to change and after taking the axle out of the transmission I found this chewed up metal piece dangling inside of the cup. I have no idea what it is or where it came from but I'm really hoping it's not from my trans. Also there was gear oil inside the boot as opposed to axle grease. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks

 

Looks like a bottle cap or something that went into the axle. This isnt a piece of the inner axle assembly.

 

Yeah it most definitely doesn't look like it broke off from anything pertaining to the axle or trans. My best guess is it somehow fell in when the previous owner was changing the axle and he didn't notice.. I'm just glad I found it

 

Inspect all of the bearing wheels on the axle. Looks like part of one of them perhaps a cover or retainer. No chance a bottle cap ended up in a boot.

 

Yeah I thoroughly inspected everything and from what I could tell it was just a foreign object that got in there somehow. Since that axle is not OEM, that piece was probably in the new axle already or maybe even fell in during the install and no one noticed. Anyway I replaced the boot, and did a trans fluid change with the redline cocktail and everything seems normal.

 

that looks like a freeze plug or a bearing dust cap from another car maybe even a cap for a grease/ gear oil can

 

Good to hear that things are ok, maybe FOD from sloppy rebuild by someone in the past. Very odd!