All I can say is welcome to the joyous world of eclips!! Gawd they're aweful aren't they? The amount I lost "pinging" across my living room as been many! lol.

Never used needle nose pliers but e-clips are meant to be removed with a small flathead screw driver. Just put a corner of the driver blade in one of the slots and simply twist gently. They should pop off without any trouble and should not "ping" off. Putting them back on just line the clip over the pin & push down with the end of a screwdriver or something similar. The only thing you have to worry about is bending them or damaging them which is easy to do as they end up being useless and fall off if that happens.

Above all its a trial & error process and take it from me, the more times you remove e-clips, the easier it becomes trust me.