Does anyone know what this convertible top part is?

[austinporsche]

Hi all.

I had the top down on my '98 986 last night and when I went to put it back up, the tonneau cover seized up.

Turns out one of the clips on one of the tonneau cover support arms popped off hinge pin and mucked the whole thing up: just about everything popped off that could pop off.

I managed to get it all repositioned and otherwise popped back together.

Found the clip but it appears to be to have lost its "spring" (won't secure onto the hinge pin anymore), so I ordered a some from Pelican (always good to buy some spares), I have a circlip holding it on temporarily to the hinge/pivot pin so I could put the top up until the replacement clips come in.

While poking around in the stow cavity for the top putting it all back together, I found this piece lying around near the support arm pivot pins on the opposite side from where everything went off the rails (Literally).



I searched all the various exploded diagrams for the convertible top sections for the 986 but can't seem to find anything that looks like this.

Does anyone know what this is, where it goes -- and whether it is essential, critical, important, or just nice to have (in a German OCD-ish kind of way)?

[austinporsche]

Never mind.

It's a spacer on the lower pivot pin for the tonneau cover arm.

Found it in both a diagram and on the car (the one (on the side that didn't pop out).

It's 38 in the picture below.

[kmarei]

i think its main purpose is to hold that foam insert for that area in place.
this is the foam barrier that directs all water to the drain hole.