its a pain when that happens..i've lost no end of screws and nuts in the depths of my car engine compartments.....

Is it really necessary to do all that?

On mine the curved spacer has a number of grooves and an elongated hole for the thread to go through. This spacer can theerfore be slid up or down to get the correct angle before re-tightening. That's all I've used to adjust where my wipers park.