Apologies for the inactive thread bump, but I just wanted to vent: I swear I'm the worst mechanic ever.
Good news: I removed my CDV and have the rubber line plugged back into the hard line.
BAD news: I accidently popped the retention clip completely off, and can't get it back in place, so the connection is not secure. My car has the clip inserted from above, so it's a delicate BLIND operation to fit it back in place, and it has outwitted me so far. I'm a bad combination of shaky & clumsy and I fear this is going to prove impossible for me.
It took me awhile to figure out how to pop that clip up to begin with, but eventually I did and thought all was well. I removed the rubber hose from the CDV, but then for the life of me could not get the CDV to come out of the hard line side. So I thought maybe I hadn't pushed the clip up far enough (even though it looked like it was fully up). I pushed it up some more and it came flying out.
Note: the similar clip that is on the CDV itself has little barbs at the ends of the legs to prevent this kind of thing, but this clip on the hard line does not.
So just to confirm: I'm totally screwed until I can get this clip back in place, right?