OK, after talking to Dexter (always a good experience with willing to help folks), and making an adjustment of my own, problem solved. Dexter assured me that there is no trick to it; you just have to have the wires FULLY compressed in the little strain relief plug between its two sections. I thought I had it fully compressed. However, working from the back side of the backing plate and with not much available slack in the wires, it turns out that what appears to be a full compression may not be. So I pulled the wires back to the brake side where a much better view is possible. then measured where I wanted the relief to be seated and crimped the wires into the strain relief by pressing the two halves of the strain relief plug firmly together with pliers โ making a very pronounced "s" set into the wires Then I disassembled it, put wires back through the backing plate land reattached the strain relief at the pre-crimped point with a reasonable squeeze from my pliers. Now the crimp is a deeper set and the unit could be pushed into the backing plate by hand. In any case, the only trick is getting the new wires from the magnet fully compressed (seated) into the two portions of the strain relief plug โ harder to do lying on your back working entirely from the back side. Charlie was right โ not enough crimp. But no mod is necessary; the thing does actually fit back in.
'07 Chevy 3500 Dooley, CC, LT3, D/A