I need to get to the bottom of an intermittent communications problem on a '95 Caprice LT1. I've been getting intermittent dropouts during data collections and then after things seemed to clear up, I had a failure on a PCM load (doorstop!). The ALDL plug is extremely loose in the car's port. Looking at the plug and the port, the male plug pins are nice and tight inside the molded. On the '95 LT1 port there are only three pins present, and they have a ton of front-to-back play. There appears to be a white plastic insert that fits in behind them, but it is just flapping around in there. I looked at some other ports from similar Caprices in the junkyard and they are all just as loose!

I'm sure the actual individual female connectors are relaxed as well and could probably use to be retensioned with a pick or something?

I'm thinking a couple of things:
1. The ALDL plug has more male pins than the car's port has female connectors. I could add a few extra dummy connectors to strengthen the physical retaining ability.
2. One the connectors are retensioned, pack the back of the port with hot glue to lock the pins in place to keep the connectors from shifting around.

Part of me would be okay with a benchtop programming setup for safety's sake (have you done this?) but I've never had a problem with my other '94 LT1 car and this car has toasted two PCMs now, so it seems that there's a problem specifically with this one. It also doesn't solve the datalog problem.

What's your experience with this?