First of all, thank you to all who took time out of their day to respond, appreciated.
Yea, in hindsight, my pictures were pretty crappy, these are better.
As porschyard and trials935 have pointed out, I put the spacers in upside down. The small diameter faces down and the large diameter faces up. The parts diagram is wrong, as it shows them upside down. Also, the previous owner put them back according to the parts diagram (upside down) after removing the bracket. That agreed with the diagram in the parts book and had me convinced that it was small diameter facing up and large diameter facing down.
Makes sense now, the small diameter fits inside the recess of the shrouding, allowing the bracket to move lower, providing a tiny amount of clearance between bracket and injector.
I've included a picture of the barrel nut to head stud showing that the spacers are definitely there as there is (almost) no stud protruding into the barrel nut.
The A/C reinstall adventure continues...
