I'm working to pull my HV battery. Ran into some clips I've never seen before, and would rather not break them. I've attached composite photos of the two primary types... What's the trick? (I found the service manual diagrams. All it says is "remove the 3 wire harness clamps" and gives a tiny useless diagram. )
SOLVED it. Whew! The first one: The clamp is mounted on a flat metal blade. Next to the blade is a flat plastic tab in the clamp. Push the tab away from the metal, and the clamp slides up and off, easily. The second one (several of these): the clamp is mounted in an oval hole, with a pair of squeezable side flanges. Presumably one can access from underneath and squeeze them together with pliers. I couldn't find a way to do that. But from above, reaching underneath the visible clamp (under the "skirt"), just push hard toward the clamp along the long edge, to release one of the flanges. Start pulling it up, squeeze the other side. It may emerge a little bent but can be bent back into shape.
My favorite idea for these (and now I can't remember who was the PriusChat member I first heard of it from) is to take a 10 mm box wrench, stick it under the oval hole, and push it over the part of the clamp that pokes through. The 10 mm box just fits over it and squeezes both side flanges, and out it pops. I tried it on my wiper wiring clamps the last time I was taking the cowl off, and it worked like magic.
Yes, that 10mm socket trick works, sometimes when you have access to the back of the clip, but I hate those clips. I'd rather they put zipties through the hole and around the harness. Then the ziptie can be cut off easily and relaced with a new one as needed. Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
Yes, those clips hold well but are really annoying to remove in "blind" holes. As you said, just lifting the clip a little can expose the "tips" of the lugs and you can push those with a pick or tiny screwdriver. You can try pushing the whole clip toward the end of the oval slot- might get the one lug to just clear the edge of the hole the tilt the clip out. (These work when the lugs are on the "ends" of the slot). When the lugs are on the "sides", both tricks are less effective. Sometimes I just gotta pry the clip out and see if the lugs survive. Recently found on some Hondas where the clips have 4 lugs- bleh. Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
When taking off the engine air intake pieces, there’s one (grounding wire) conduit side clip: after taking it off numerous times it’s become very easy; it has the jaws, but they’ve become rounded, and/or the jaw has lost a bit of tension. And even though it’s slightly compromised it’s holds ok. At least at these side mount locations, maybe the yoink technique is good.
