Disassembly of the Knipex Cobra XS Pliers

This is a quick tutorials on disassembling the Knipex Cobra XS pliers. The pliers are comprised of five parts outlined in the exploded diagram below.

The pliers are held together by a spring loaded ball forcing the pivot pawl tab to the forward end of the pliers. This forces a misalignment between the pivot pawl tab and a notch on the pivot jaw. To disassemble the pliers you must force the pivot pawl tab to align with the pivot jaw notch. This will allow the pivot pawl to be removed from the assembly.

In order to force the tab to align with the notch you must create or obtain a stiff tool with a thickness less than the allowable slop in the pivot pawl. This minimum thickness is around 0.45 mm or (0.018”). A skinny tweezer that you can file down should work.

Once the tab and notch are aligned I use a strong magnet to help pull the pivot pawl from the slot. Be mindful that the spring does not eject the ball.

To reassemble the pliers put the spring and ball back into the pivot pawl and align the jaws. Then insert the pivot pawl with compressed spring and ball into the pivot jaw. It should snap into place.

Here is a quick video of the reassembly process.

I have also uploaded a high resolution true to scale CAD model in STEP file format. Feel free to download and use as you see fit.