Loose bolt in engine bay

[TomH]

I was working on an oil change on my 63 d to c conversion and found the bolt in the attached image wedged in the cowl flap against the control rod attachment point. 

At this point I have looked for it’s home to no avail. Intake, exhaust, pistons, all are as they should be. 

Picture was taken on top of baffling, for context. Also, stamped with CP on top of bolt. 
Any help is appreciated. 

Thank you
 

[A64Pilot]

Any recent work? Start there. Just as a pure guess because it could be anything it looks like the bolt that attaches the ground wire.

I’d suspect mechanic dropped it, couldn’t find it and put new bolt in, and it surfaced later.

You need to de-cowl and give things a good look though.

[markgrue]

Looks like a bolt for the baffling 

[RoundTwo]

Coarse thread, so not AN. 

[Bolter]

46 minutes ago, RoundTwo said:

Coarse thread, so not AN. 

Is that actually an ACME thread?  The threads are not sharp, but squared off.  

[N201MKTurbo]

Baffling attach, alternator mount, sump attach or accessory housing.

[Hank]

I found a similar bolt in the cowling of my C once, it was one of the two alternator mounting bolts . . . .

[Utah20Gflyer]

8 hours ago, A64Pilot said:

Any recent work? Start there. Just as a pure guess because it could be anything it looks like the bolt that attaches the ground wire.

I’d suspect mechanic dropped it, couldn’t find it and put new bolt in, and it surfaced later.

You need to de-cowl and give things a good look though.

After my first annual I pulled off a cheek panel to check things over and found a spark plug gasket sitting loose on the bottom of my cowling.  I asked the mechanic if he was sure all the spark plugs had gaskets and he said he dropped one and couldn’t find it so just replaced it with a new one.  
 

There is something unnerving about finding loose stuff at the bottom of your cowling.  

[TomH]

The hunt goes on

[A64Pilot]

On 7/21/2023 at 6:01 PM, Utah20Gflyer said:

After my first annual I pulled off a cheek panel to check things over and found a spark plug gasket sitting loose on the bottom of my cowling.  I asked the mechanic if he was sure all the spark plugs had gaskets and he said he dropped one and couldn’t find it so just replaced it with a new one.  
 

There is something unnerving about finding loose stuff at the bottom of your cowling.  

I was a young Private just started working on helicopters, watching the old Warrant Officer pre-flighting a Huey that just came out of Phase (Army Annual).

Never thought that years later that would be me  

He was slapping the bottom of the tail boom pretty hard and I was wondering what for, well he would slap it, and hear a thunk. They took the cover off and took out the torque wrench that was used to torque the Sync elevator.

Worst thing we found though was a baseball grenade in a Huey fuel cell, we were changing the cell and found it, hangar was evacuated and EOD came and got it.

We think it had been there since Vietnam, the trick was to wrap the spoon on the hand grenade with duct tape or electric tape, then just before putting it into the tank to pull the pin, fuel would dissolve the tape later giving the culprit time to get away, well on this one they forgot to pull the pin.

Years later I worked at Thrush and we were replacing the main spar caps in a set of wings and found a bucking bar that had been there since the wings were new.

Over the years I feel like I could have filled a tool box with the tools I’ve found, worst is Civilian airplanes and it’s tools laying in between the cylinders on the engine, they seem to hide there. Some I have found based on the rust etc I know they were there for years