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Removing the intake manifold to fix some hose fittings on the back of the motor. Ran into a bit of a challenge. There is a vacuum fitting on the right side rear of the manifold. It has a squeeze tab on either side. You are supposed to squeeze and lift. Mine will not. No matter how hard I squeeze and lift, it is not coming off. Am I missing something?
Quick guess here, before the people who know what they're talking about chime in ...
I do remember dealing with fittings like that, but at the front of the engine (maybe around or under the Y intake). Mine had already been damaged, and due to that it took a little more damage to get it off for me. The answer may be a tool that pushes those nubs in even further than you are doing.
But my advice is that the mechanism is difficult by design. I would find a similar fitting at the front of the engine where it is clear and easy to access and work on, while you figure out the secret of how to get it off. Once you have the right tool and technique, you can then tackle that deep-buried one in the back.
I ended up going upstream the other way and disconnected at a more traditional O-ring clamp. So I pulled out the whole vacuum assembly when removing the intake. It will be easy to re-attach.
Now I need to fix the broke T intersection where they scavenge oil breather fumes from turbo lubrication. They get old / brittle and break. The hoses are either side of the old T were very brittle so I had to cut them back, still leaving enough room to insert a new T. Off the O'Reilly's to get parts!
OK, here's a more specific guess, partly due to the fact that nobody else has given the answer ...
I'm guessing that is a more standard fitting, where there is a ring at the bottom, and you press it together on opposite sides with your fingers to release the catch, and then it slides off. Like this:
So when you press in on the sides, say at 0 and 180*, it actually pulls out on the locking things at 90* and 270*, which allows the fitting to come out.
If that thing at the end that you're supposed to press on with your fingers is completely broken off and gone, you are just left with those locking nubs. So you'd need to pull those nubs (at 90 and 270) OUT to allow release. I can believe that if it broke this way, you would actually then be able to press it back on and it would stay ... until the next time.