The mystery piece of metal looks like about an eigth of a retaining "spring" from one of the clutch packs. The other 7/8ths of it may be floating around inside somewhere, causing havoc, or maybe that clutch pack is now very loose, causing the problems.

Rick

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80 300SD (129k mi) 82 240D stick (193k mi)77 240D auto - stick to be (153k mi) 85 380SL (145k mi) 89 BMW 535i 82 Diesel Rabbit Pickup (374k mi) 91 Jetta IDI Diesel (155k mi) 81 VW Rabbit Convertible Diesel 70 Triumph Spitfire Mk III (63kmi)66 Triumph TR4a IRS (90k mi)67 Ford F-100 (??)