That y tube is so very brittle, that every time you work on the area, you are virtually guaranteed to break it in some way.
I am thinking, put a connector tube into the heater hose at the back, clamp, put another heater hose of fitting diameter, on other end of the plastic tube, clamp again, and the other end of the heater hose, plug pon top of prepared ending of the y pipe (pre cut before the split, so that the heater hose is a straight line). This will at least keep the back end of the pipe more resistant to heat. At some point I may think of something to refit the connectors to each bank too.
Just throwing this out for yall to advise me on. Thanks.