I've got a question about the rear end cover, while looking a some pictures of CHVYPWR's elky i noticed in the rear suspension picture that his rear end cover had a "dent" in it, i noticed this "dent" on my rear cover too and was wondering if any one could tell me what its for? a spot for a fill plug? if so it seems a little low.
http://elcaminocentral.com/users/camino81/Elky_rear_susp.jpg

If you pull the cover off,you'd see that there is a circular magnet right where that dent is. The dent is to keep the magnet from moving around. The magnet is there to pick up small shaving/metal debris that'll come off the gears as they turn. Your trans. pan will have a magnet as well.

It's a good thing to change your trans. and rear fluid every 30,000 along with cleaning your pan and cover of that metal.

Well that makes sense, but nope and nope didn't have magnet in rear or the tranny pan.

Maybe previous owner removed it from the rear at some point. Neither my tranny out of my 81 or 83 had a magnet in the tranny pan?

Really? They are there from the factory. I think the aftermarket covers don't have them,but the GM ones do. They are a good thing to have in there. If you've ever changed rear oil or trans. fluid with one on there,you'd see how much metal debris builds up during use. It's also a good thing to get a magnet for the oil filter. All those metal contaminates flowing through your fluids wear down parts prematurely.

Both tranny pans are factory as is the rear cover, i know that rear had been removed before as it had a nasty RTV homemade gasket on it so maybe it was removed then. I know when i pulled the rear out to paint rear and change rear oil i took off the cover and cleaned up gears and inside the pumpkin and i didn't see a magnet anywhere.

Mine has the magnet in it now, the original rear end didn't. The rear in mine came out of an '86 Monte SS.