A little brass tube with a flare to put in a soft item so a tightened bolt doesn't crush it. For the life of me I can't remember the name of what I'm describing and I want to get some from ebay

Regards,
Dave

Crush Tube?

furrel ?

Olive

Spacer collar or stand off? Haven't seen a flared one though.

Eyelet

We call them compression limiters at work, normally used with rubber isolators in our case.

The description is a bit vague but I'd say your looking for either a whatsit, a widget or a thingamebob.

Eric, or Paul.

Thanks, that's given me some useful words to plug into ebay. I originally had a set from when I used to fly R/C planes in the late 80's. The servos would have rubber isolators and these little brass doobries would go through them so the screws into the plane wouldn't crush the rubber. However, they were sized for small self tappers and I want some so I don't crush my f/g dash top putting M4 bolts through.

That's a crush tube then.

Could you just cut them from 3/16" brake pipe?

Sounds like a "Top hat spacer" would suit your needs.