Ah, so the bolt is captured within the connector. I'll try that tomorrow.

Dave

 

I finally got around to working on it yesterday. The ECU connector worked exactly as described - it takes quite a few turns of the wrench until it's fully removed.

My troubleshooting finished with the PIP sensor itself, following the Haynes manual. Since the truck has 175k, I put in a new distributor stator instead. Aside from the usual annoyance of trying to set timing with a rusty dampener and fan blades blocking most of the flashes, everything went well.

Thanks for the assistance, particularly Subford.