My old hood latch broke. I went to the junkyard, and got a replacement off a firebird. It worked great for a month or 2. I recently tried to close the hood, and it wouldnt close! after spraying some WD-40 on it, it still wouldnt close! I had to manually push the locking mechanism back, and i let the hood down. Wtf is happening to my hood latches? Did this happen to anyone else?

 

did the spring in it break?

 

I dont know, possibly. Im havin a hell of a time tryin to open it as well, it takes 2 people.

 

How nice is the paint on the car. My wagon has a tweak front clip and the latch will not line up for **** so removed it and put in some $5.99 chrome hood pins.

Matt

 

How are the gas supports? If they're weak, they won't give any upward pressure to the hood, which helps make the latch swing open- and when the latch swings open, the locking mechanism swings "back" to allow the hood to be closed again.

Also take a look at the hood alignment. The hood should be pretty much even with your fenders. If the hood isn't lined up, it'll be difficult to open the latch. You also might have to adjust the bumpers on your radiator support to give the hood a bit more upward pressure. If, when the hood's closed (and you're not trying to open it), is there "excessive play" if you press down on the front of the hood? Know what I mean? If you press down on the front of the hood, repeatedly, it shouldn't be able to "bounce around" up & down against the latch. It should be able to wobble a little bit "up" and "down", but not like an inch or so.

Oh and as far as I remember (for A, coming on the computer on a weekend, B, it being 3:00 am in Jersey, and C, having had a few beers tonight and not much food), there's no spring in the hood latch. The only "springing" operation is caused by the gas support lifts.... of which I should really replace on mine. You can ask the Northeast Crew guys that went to the TR2 (Toms River 2) meet how long it took me to get my hood open! Talk about feeling like a dork!

 

sort story..

my hood was hard to open... after i pop it i would always have to lift i hard for it to open...


i open it like that infront of 3rdgen friend #1
he says a lil grease would fix that
i tell him its the damn hood alignment.. thats why it sticks so bad

i open it like that infront of 3rdgen friend #2
he says a lil grease would fix that
i tell him its the damn hood alignment.. thats why it sticks so bad

i open it like that infront of 3rdgen friend #3
he says a lil grease would fix that
i tell him its the damn hood alignment.. thats why it sticks so bad

then when im out there greasing my zerk fittings a couple weeks ago, i put some grease on the latch.....

bingo. since then my hood pops open and closes no prob.

not only did i feel like a idiot after waiting so long for somthing so simple, i couldnt believe how a lil lack of grease made it stick so bad.....

 

I did the exact same thing. I always had to fight to pop the hood. Then I was working on my car one day, sprayed it with WD-40, and now it works great.

Funny story. I was doing something to my car one day. So I pop the hood (this is when it was still hard to open). But then I didn't do anything to the car. I always work on my car at my parents' house. So I'm heading home along the freeway, get off, and I see the hood flopping up and down. I say to my cousin who's in the car with me "Is my hood flopping around, or am I nuts?" He's says it is. So I get out at the light, open it, and drop it closed real cool like so my cousin doesn't know what an idiot I was.

 

I'll give the grease a shot, and if it dosen't work, i'll try TomPs idea. Thanks a lot everyone.

 

how do the hood pins look? because I have a pretty nice paintjob.

 

It would depend on how well you do the job. YOu gotta drill two nice size holes buy you get a nice chrome cover plate for each hole.

Just gotta do it right. When I did mine I just grabbed 1 drill bit and let lose on the wagon till they fit.

A good job with the drill and placement would make it look trick. Hod pins add atleasy 50hp. hehehe

Matt

 

mine's broken too...

 

Alright mine broke 3 years back and I got a BRAND NEW one by calling up the dealer and boom they had it. Someone just e-mail GMpartsdirect and see if they still make it. It's two bolts tp tale off and comes pregreased.