'91 4.0L Harness Disconnect

Getting ready to pull my engine, the harness disconnect at the firewall below/beside the brake master cylinder is proving troublesome. I disconnected the two torx screws at the fuse panel to allow me to manipulate the plug area in the engine bay, the big plugs don't want to let loose. There are "ears" on both sides, I pried those up and away a bit, plug still doesn't want to come off. I don't want to force this and damage it, as I have a buyer for the engine and want to keep everything intact. Is there some trick for getting these plugs to come loose?

Thanks,

Doug

there is a small bolt in the center(engine side) that needs to be loosened.

92XJPortageWI said:

there is a small bolt in the center(engine side) that needs to be loosened.

Click to expand...

Correct, usually it is a 6mm bolt head. You will probably have to use a 1/4" ratchet with a 12" wobble extension to get down to it, but it is there. Stop pulling on those ears, they won't get you anywhere.

on my 89, the bolt on the engine side is hard to see as it is between the 2 wiring harness plugs.

92XJPortageWI said:

there is a small bolt in the center(engine side) that needs to be loosened.

Click to expand...

Thanks, that's exactly the kind of advice I was looking for. I didn't horse it around much beforehand, trying to evolve beyond my instinctive Caveman ways.

Alright, turned out to be an 8mm/1/4" on the little bolt in the center of the big harness plug. It's also captive, so it's hard to tell when you've got it actually loose. I just kept turning for another 3-4 revolutions after I *thought* I had it loose. The plug is also very tight, as in I still couldn't get it unplugged by hand, I used a pry bar off of the upper edge of the hood bay at the firewall and pried/wiggled it a few times at the plug insert and then it came loose. Tons of terminals in there with lots of dialectric grease makes for a tight junction.

Anyways, that's how it went. Thanks for the replies.

That's not di-electric grease they used it's some sort of nasty primortial ooze that won't come off even with gasoline, but does one heck of a job of sealing it up. A hint for you when putting in the new harness leave the inside part loose and push the engine side through the hole, then connect the two inside under the dash and have more room and freedom to tighten/loosen the bolt in the middle of the two connectors.