The Red Mist has descended.
I'm trying to pull apart the half black half white two pin connector supplying power to the top pump motor.
After an hour of increasingly frenetic waggling, screwdriver poking etc. it seems that explosives are the only way to get the bloody thing apart and I'm worried about blast damage to the paintwork and adjacent electronics.
What am I doing wrong?

 

Sorry to hear on the mist thing.

That connector is cranky. There's no pin or latch in it, just a press fit, but it can be a real pain to open. Sort of a rocking and pulling motion eventually gets it done. Pull hard!

Muttering some key phrases will help, but the most effective of these can't be printed here.

Good luck.

 

It is just a friction fit on the contacts, but it can be quite tight. Perhaps try some light pentrating lubricant sprayed on the contacts (since it is not a sealed connector) from behind, wait an hour, and try again.

 

Thanks both. Once you'd told me there was no underbuckle double-headed thrum catch to deal with I pulled on the wires, not the connector and it fell apart.
A very counter-intuitive thing to do.
I've put the gelignite back in the store.

 

I also had a bit of a struggle when trying to disconnect this connector and got close to pulling on the wires but the halves finally separated with a bit of rocking and pulling. There are quite a number of similar connectors on this and other cars, many in the engine compartment, that end up being difficult to disconnect without breaking the fragile plastic pieces. What I have done is to coat the surfaces with a silicon grease prior to reconnecting in the hopes that this will keep the pieces from seizing together. I am not sure this really helps since the connections are not all that easy to undo the next time.

Doug