I ended up taking a 3/8" drill bit and running it between the bars and the bar snake, I then reversed the drill and was able to get bar snake out of the bars far enough to lock onto them with a pair of vice grips and pull it back out.
After it was removed I did a best guess on the length and reinstalled it leaving a loop of wire long enough that I could cut one side of the loop and pull the wire out of the snake while it was still in the bars. I ended up jamming a 3/8" drive extension down the bars to hold the bar snake in position while pulled the wire out the rubber. I was the able to install my stock bar ends. This seemed to help a little but did not solve all of my problems my hand still goes numb after a good cruz.
Like you said it would help if the instructions gave a little more detail.
I hope this helps the next guy that trys to install one of these.