Brittle plastic harnesses

[niznos]

As with any older engine, the plastics of my engine are getting all kinds of crusty and harder to get disconnected without damage, especially those wiring harnesses with the metal clips on them like the ones on the injectors, AAC, temp. sensor, etc. Is there a better/ right way to disconnect these harnesses to eliminate or lessen breakage? Or is it just one of those things we're just going to have to really tippy toe around?

[Altiman94]

I have the same problem, except that the shop that put in my new motor broke off all the metal clips so none of them connect very well anymore...

[Ichi-Go]

I wonder if there is a product you can apply to those little plastic clippys to increase plyability or to make it more like new and less brittle. If not then there should be. Maybe armoral or something like that.

[niznos]

The reason I asked this in the first place was because I wanted to take the AAC off for cleaning and the connectors where hard to get off. I just took them off today and sure enough, they broke. It's minor though, there's a little nub of plastic that holds the spring clip in, it snapped off, but I just wrapped some electrical tape on it afterwards to keep the spring from vibrating out. Seems like the best case senario since it was basically guarenteed to break. It could have been a lot worse, you just have to be real gentle.