u/Ok_Technician4231

I’m honestly having some buyers regret with my Z32. I’ve had it like 3 months and it still runs decently (bad knock sensor) and like I’m willing to do repairs and everything, I definitely have the willpower to do these things and learn but I’m just so scared about discontinued parts. What happens if I encounter an issue that can only be fixed by discontinued parts? Has anyone ever ran into that situation and what did you do if you have?

TLDR: Installed new starter, not sure if some metal shavings that came out are from the starter motor or the bell housing. Hoping I didn't strip the threads out of bell housing.

I had recently just replaced my starter motor as the OEM one was going out. Anyway I got the original off no problem but upon reinstalling the lower bolt that holds the starter to the bell housing that at around 30 NM of torque it really began to thread a lot easier without tightening back up (down to about 15 NM of torque) and I also started to see little metallic shavings coming off the threads at which point I stopped threading it in. I've driven on it for about 5 or so days now and haven't noticed any starting issues however now I have a slight audible rattle in first gear at about 1200 RPM and feel like I can sometimes hear metal rattling over bumps and such. I tried to wiggle the starter and see if it was loose but it seems to be just as tight as it was when I installed it. So my question is could those shavings possibly have just been the starter motor getting threaded by the bolt, and then once the bolt actually began to thread the bell housing those shavings from the motor simply fell came out the other side of the bolt? I just want to make sure I didn't just wreck the starter bolt threads on the actual transmission itself, hopefully just some metal from the starter.