Have you considered giving the clips a good soaking in something like Wurth's Contact Ol?
Worked like a charm on mine...
haven't heard of that stuff, is it anything like the spay contact cleaner that we use at work? ours is fast evaporating, light cleaning. (home depot sells it too), i am not talking about the tuner/contact cleaner that radio shack sells. my block is so rusty that i'm afraid that any king of sanding or caustic cleaner will take any outer plating off down to the base metal.
it just seemed like it would have been easier to replace the clips with new, but i haven't been able to find them separately.
ps, where could i find this Wurth's Contact Oil?