So I was doing a shifter regrease because I've been having problems shifting (clunkiness and resistance) ever since I got the car. I've done a regrease on this car before, but last time I didn't fully clean where the pivot ball stays in or below that (for my initial regrease, the grease was dried out, so I regreased with Honda grease; it did improve shifting, but didn't fix it).

So I decided to do another regrease, but this time at the bottom of the housing i found this small metal cylinder that was just sitting below the shifter housing its hollow and was covered and filled with grease. WHAT IS THIS ?? Am I done for?

Also, Im 99% sure I didn't drop anything last time, that was one of the reasons I didn't want to clean down there.

I removed it with no resistance with my magnetic flat head. The red in the photo is where it was found. Any help is appreciated.





This was fully covered in grease i just cleaned it out.

 

Alignment dowel. It goes under the shifter housing, there are two of them. Likely nothing you did, but a previous repair.

 

Is this something I should be concerned about and take to a mechanic? As a side note, I was in a minor hit-and-run; it barely dented my rear bumper and caused no frame damage, but it did shake the car heavily not sure if this is related.

Also, thank you for your response!