[Mart]

Craig, crab distributors are great bits of kit. My personal recommendation would be as already mentioned by others above.
Buy a crab cap.
Buy the conversion clip kit to hold the cap on.
Run the wires without the conduit. I bundle the wires for convenience using cable ties.
I had a set of custom wires made to my own specified lengths unfortunately I have no record of the lengths.

Lots of people use this setup and it works well for me at least, across 4 different vehicles.

As stated above ease of maintenance is the key.

If it completely cures your problem then maybe you could try running in conduit to see if it reverts to previous behaviour.

Mart.