Hard top blues

[Mathew]

All this top down talk has reminded me of my most recently discovered problem (I seem to be overflowing with them at the moment!). With the recent good weather I finally removed my hard-top (yes! I'm getting soft in my old age-late 20's) and found that the double threaded pin that connects the hard-top mushroom cap to the back of my car had very recently dissappeared and along with it the female threaded bit that was supposedly attached to the car. It appears the female threaded bit has snapped off the body, the pin has slowly unscrewed itself from the mushroom cap, and the lot has fallen into the the dark recesses behind the fuel cap intake hoses. Has anyone else had this problem or am I just the "Lucky" one. After ten minutes of poking around I can't figure out how to get into the cavity to see if the bolt is in there, and have temporarily given up, but eventually I'm going to want to put the hard-top back on.
Any pearls of wisdom O' knowledgeable ones?

[zorruno]

don't know if I fit the pearl o' wisdom camp... but if you mean the tunnel
on the left hand side of the boot (looking into it) where the fuel hoses
are, then this is easy. The metal plate comes out with a few bolts (this is
the plate that the wheel brace thingy is supposed to sit on). I removed
that plate on mine permanently - there is useful space in that tunnel for
long weekend luggage... and the plate itself must weigh a few unnecessary
grams...

cheers
H.