Be thankful for the epiphany. You could still be looking.....but I seem to remember posting something about throwing too many darts at a time without evaluating the outcome. Oh well...
Re: removing the female connectors - a) if they are secure, (i.e., they don't push back out of the housing when pulled on from the harness end), leave 'em alone. That is, upon inspecting the wire crimp for integrity, and making sure none of the wires are touching each other, etc. then I might begin to suspect a spot of compromised wire(s) from the tug (whole 'nother issue). b) if they are NOT secure, pull one back out of the housing. There is one tiny sliver of metal that protrudes from the connector. That is the only thing that secures the connector to the housing by way of a 'stop' inside the housing, and when the connector is inserted, it 'clicks' into place theoretically securing it under 'normal' circumstances - A 'one-time' deal. c) if they are just depressed, cheer them up with a slight bend to make them stick out farther and reinsert into the housing. d) if they are missing, broken (you must try and find the missing tang - look inside the housing; you don't want a sliver of metal hangin' 'round messin' up anything else), you must replace the connector - solder it onto the wire. Make sure the new one's little metal tangs are protruding nicely before insertion (hoo boy...)
You'll have to look at either another one inserted properly or look in the housing to see how to orient the little tab into the housing.You can remove them from the housing by sticking something like a tiny jeweler's screwdriver into the housing to depress the tab enough to allow the connector to be extracted. Then of course, you risk breaking it altogether by having to bend it back out before inserting it (again). Or worse, having the tab be stressed just enough that upon insertion, it breaks inside the housing, leaving you with the same (or worse) condition, and another problem of wayward metal (and here's you thinking you did good by 'fixing' it; an example of the 20/20 foresight for which we should all spend a lifetime fine-tuning our glasses).
I would still quadruple check your wiper board integrity.
Good luck
A pic is worth a thousand words dept.:
