I figured as such. We were talking about it, and someone asked me if I thought the guy who sold it to me knew about it. I said "Naw, he's a dealer. He took it in on trade, the tech looked at it, it ran, that's not something they'd notice. "
No worries, still not sure what I'm going to do. I've got a guy who thinks it can be welded, I figure it's worth a shot to see if he can weld it before I look at a motor swap. If it doesn't work, I'm out the cost of the guy's time.
The theory is that the stainless pin that the weld won't stick to the stainless pin that holds the starter gear. So if he welds around it, we should still be able to pull the pin and clean up around it with an angle grinder/dremmel. That, plus a new stator cover should hold it.
I don't want to fix it such that I know it's going to break over time, even though my plan is to fix it over the winter and sell it in the Spring. Not my style to sell something that I KNOW is fucked up.