Okay brain trust, who has dealt with this problem. I know the engineers hate us, but whoever was tasked with this must have had an argument with their wife the night before. I have attached a photo of a brand new, OEM coil pack for the first four cylinders of my V-10, 2001 2500. I need to know how to remove this thing..I can see the tops of the two tabs, I ran a tiny flat-bladed screwdriver right up the middle from the bottom, but all it did was push up the dust under the bridge doing nothing. There is no room on the sides so I don't understand the conformation fo the retainer.
Thanks.

 

I dont own, nor have I worked on a V10 in some years so my brain doesn't remember, is the just a simple lock tab connector or does it have the sideways secondary lock

 

Okay, I finally figured out with the help of the reply o dodgetruck2's comment about a retining mechanism.

I am a trained M.S. degreed chemist, which means I am no smarter than the next guy/gal, it only means I spent five years and a lot of money being classically trained to make observations. I want to make that clear, all that applies here are observations that took me a couple hours because I didn't want to break things. This thing had me stumped and so V-10's weren't as popular as the diesel and V-8, I would like to show why I love Dodge products and their sometimes NASA level engineering shyte.


You can see the parts of the molded in locks. They are a little off to the side, suggesting something is different about the plug retainer.



This is what you see of the plug of your V-10 coil pack plug when it is pulled off.



This is what your fighting; this is the tab fully to the left in the locked postion. See that tiny red tit peeking out? Use a small dental pick to very carefully pull it DOWN while you simultaneously push UP on the plug, then push the red "U" over towards the right. When it is fully to the right, press on the plastic tab at the bottom of the plug, this is the second lock, it doesn't take much, but if you don't perform this ballet in sequence, it won't come off and you'll end up using unnecessary Power Words best kept in reserve for busted knuckles and such, pull down and remove.



This is what you see when you look at the side of the plug with a dental mirror. So: use a couple drops of Kroil to help ease things along, can you see the tit just above the bottom of the "U", it's soft plastic, so be careful. Pull it down while sliding the female end up onto the male snout on the coil pak, you'll feel and hear a tiny click, do all these things: push up, pull gently down on the tit, when it clicks, push it right to left and it will lock the plug in place.

So there it is. I identified several of these connectors in the wiring harness. I hope this helps move the knowledge base forward and can help others when presented with these connectors.

 

I have seen those "red tab" ones before and was able to figure them out. I have seen some connectors that don't have push tabs but a little tab under the plastic. Question is do you push down or up to remove it or push it in? Sometimes it's easier to remove what the plug goes to than figure out how to remove the plug. And if you do it wrong it breaks then you need to use a zip tie/silicone to keep it on. I get they want to keep the plug on and from accidentally coming off but why do they make it so complicated. Simple push tabs on both sides of the connector is more than enough! Furd has confusing plugs also. I believe it's not the manufactures that come up with the design, Delphi used to make connectors for all kinds of markets. Don't know if any of you have seen the lever type connectors, They get dirt and crud stuck in them and it's not easy to get them apart. Add they have been exposed to heat for years and it's almost guaranteed something will break getting it off.