Hood Latch Release

[ImportFan1]

So I told my dad that I needed my oil changed so he could get the stuff for it. Well he got home and decided that he would help me out and start it. He came up to my room right before I was comin down to change it and he threw something at me. He broke off my hood latch release inside the car so now i need to use a pair of pliers to open my hood. Has anyone had to replace this and was it hard? Do i need to get a whole new cable and all that with the release? Any help would be appreciated. Here is what is broken off.

 

[munsterEK]

I have a 97 and a 98 and both of my hood releases snapped off. I keep the pliers in the glove compartment. I know of alot of 6th gens with them snapped. Never replaced mine so I really can't tell you how hard it is...just that you're not alone.

 

[BlackHopeDC5]

not uncommon... i believe this happened to blazed and nofx.... ask one of them what they did

 

[ImportFan1]

thanx blackhope.

 

[NOFX]

It's happened to me twice. Keep some pliers or somethign around... Mine sticks like a motherfucker.

Anyway, you need to replace the entire hood cable. Remove the wheelwell trim from the driver's side front. Pop the hood and press all those little white clips on the radiator support down. Remove the front bumper too btw.

Unclip it all around. There's also a bracket near the pedals. Crawl down there and remove the handle end from there. You might have to remove the black cover from the latch on the front of the car and unhook the end of the cable there too. Pull it all out. There's a little black seal that's in between inside and outside of the car that it goes through too. I used a used cable, so I had everything I needed (the clips, seal, blah blah blah) all attached already.

Replace in reverse order. It's really easy, just kind of a pain in the ass.

Since mine's snapped twice I'll be looking to replace it with a custom fabbed METAL handle this time. f**k that flimsy plastic one. Went through two in about three years.

 

[NOFX]

Oh, and incase I wasn't clear....


The cable runs from the middle of the front of your hood, behind the driver headlight, into the wheelwell (against the body behind the wheelwell trim), and into the passenger compartment right behind the fuse box.

 

[ImportFan1]

thanx amy. bout how long did this take to replace? how hard was it?

 

[NOFX]

It wasn't very hard. I'm a bad estimate of time though... I only did it once and I guess I expected it to be more difficult than it was. Plus I had to put the bumper back on and go back new clips for it too.

So yeah, buy new trim clips before hand. teh ones for the wheelwell I mean. They will be a pain in the ass to remove more than anythign and might hold you up. It's best to either use a clip remover (go to Autozone, I know they're with the hardware there, they were underneath the hardware at my store, hard to find, no one knew where they were) or just don't care and shread them to s**t.

 

[MajEK]

Hey, if your paranoid like me you can forgo the clips and just run it under the hood and threw the firewall.
I dont like how easy it is to pop the hood from the outside of the car so I did that. now theifs gotta break my window to get in... but little do they know they gotta climb in dukes style cuzz I took my manuallocks off.

Heh, sry, off topic!