I would not worry, if it was in there you would have found it,

 

Well boys it's a Christmas miracle. I did open the transmission inspection window and used the boroscope and didn't see anything. I looked and felt everywhere with a flashlight on the undercarriage. I got fed up with looking for the nut so I decided to just install the new starter and risk it. I sanded the connectors to remove all the rust and took the heat shield from the old one and placed it on the new starter. It starts up like a brand new truck now, I'd been dealing with this issue for so long and kept thinking it was the battery. After I started it, I moved it up 10 feet then used a metal detector and found the nut about halfway between where I moved it and where it was originally. It must've fallen off the truck when moving it, I have NO IDEA where it was. I'm glad for my peace of mind that I found it. I bought a remanufactured carquest starter, we'll see how it holds up. It was about $180 and I get $35 back for the core. The ACDelco starter was wayyyy more expensive. The old one I took off was a remanufactured ACDelco so the starter had already been replaced previously at some point.

 

You got it, nice work. Your carquest starter is manufactured by bbb industries.
Btw, you overpaid for a reman.

New 6492 ($0-core charge)from: Rock Auto

 

that definitely sounds like Murphy's law.
you drop one thing and you find it half way across the room inside the fish tank on the shelf.. lol

 

The same when you end up with a rotted shell.

 

DAMN. I bought it locally becuz I wanted to fix it before the weekend I needed to haul something. That was even with a black Friday discount it was $180! Well $145 after I returned the old one.

Thanks to everyone for your help!

 

The good thing about buying local is that if you have a warranty in the future, you won't have any downtime waiting on a replacement to come in the mail.