Thanks for being amongst the people who contribute to this site. You have helped many more than have taken the time to comment. Keep up the great work.
I cannot thank you enough for taking the time to shoot and post this video. My '97 F250 was high and dry with a bum alternator and two dead batteries and when I tried to pop the hood and---nothing. Your video is a life saver. Thanks! (I used a bent 3" finishing nail held with a vise grip).
Thanks!Popped the hood on my wifes 98 eddie bauer explorer in minutes.Noone else really explained,or knew how to use a camera.One guy just said BOOM...
Tip: Your hood release cable may not be broken, just stretched a bit. In that case, remove cable loop from hood mechanism and tie a knot in the cable near the loop. This will shorten the cable enough for the release lever to do the job again.
Oh man thank you so much my 95 explorer hood latch has a tendency to not work when it's hot outside all I needed was a small screwdriver and I finally was able to get to my power distribution box
Thank you for your video my husband was working on his spark plugs and jammed the hood. Thanks to your video he was able to open the hood again and he is a happy happy man!
Let me start by saying it helps to know exactly what the front of this latch looks like if it weren't covered up by the hood, so I went to the junk yard and took some HD pictures of one to refer to. When I started I couldn't see anything at all except the very bottom of the mechanism so Before I even tried to unlock anything I felt where everything was with fingertips. Over and over. But anyway I used the individual allen keys and I think it was 1/8th... I held it by the short leg and placed the long leg up and over the ledge, dragging it to the left until I felt it touch something, then pulled back toward me a little (not right or left, just straight back towards my chest) until it moved another 1/2" or so, then pushed in, and tried to drag back to the right and it hit something again with barely any movement to the right. I knew then that the allen was in he correct place. So, knowing if I slipped at all it was going to be a knuckle buster and I would end up probably dropping the allen (again) and without much doubt, shooting my truck with a large caliber pistol, I held the allen as tight as I could and forced my left hand in there on the left side and managed to get two fingers on the left side of the allen in the middle of the stem. I shoved as hard as I could and nearly got a pretty bad cut on the backside of the grill, but it worked. It just had to be hard and fast. After the hood jumped up, I got some fencing wire about 18 inches long and made a loop on one end for a handle, then twisted a small loop on the other end with some needle-nose pliers to place on the release catch that I used the allen on. It works perfect and I've since gotten two more hood cables from the parts house and hooked one of them up, but the fencing wire stays right there tucked inside the grill just in case I ever have the cable break again. And yes, I would imagine that a pair of needle-nose vise grip pliers holding the allen key would have been great to hold with my right hand while doing the shoving with only the left. I hope this helps
Holy crap you just totally saved my ass. I tried everything. Even some things i probably shouldn't have. ...... If it rains for the next forty days that's my fault...
It really is quite a problem if you don't know the trick. I know people that were charged over $200 at the dealer to open the hood and replace the latch when it was completely unnecessary.
Thank You. Not exactly the same but close enough to figure it out. The release cable had broken from the latch, but I was able to get a flat-head up in between there and open the latch.
I used a sturdy flat head screwdriver on my '95 Explorer and it worked like a charm! Pay $30 plus install for a new hood release? I don"t think so... Thanks, Byron!
This video saved my day! Thank you! Note: On my 1992 F150 it wasn't exactly like this, but this gave me a good enough sense for what I was looking/feeling for. I stuck my hand up under and found a cable slightly toward the driver side from center and followed it toward center until my hand found a latch to pull. No tools.
+Byron Reynolds Well I mean pull toward the driver's side. Not toward myself. Pretty similar to the video. Just slightly different hardware to feel for and I was able to do it with my hand instead of a tool.
It is probably similar. I recommend studying one that can be opened for similar features as shown in the video. Ford has a long history of not changing designs that work. It wouldn't surprise me if the latch was the same or almost the same.
What would be good to know is how to fix the hood latch cable. Mine is still connected but it has to be pulled quite a bit before it would unlatch. Seems to me there would be an adjustment somewhere.
Try it again, while having someone sit on the hood. If you slammed the hood on jumper cables or something else that is causing the mechanism to jam, you have to get that load off the mechanism before it will move.
Rodney Burns I'm not sure, but when you get it figured out, it would be awfully nice of you to make a video for the dozens of other folks that are going to be faced with the same nightmare.
Jacob christian So you heard something pop...that might be the cable breaking. If you know for sure the mechanism is releasing yet the hood still doesn't open...I don't have a lot of ideas.
Vasile Costin Bummer. I've seen a few that were really worn...and really stuck. Usually if you do this trick as well as beat on the hood (get a helper), it will pop free.
Two minutes by the way he only had to use his screwdriver to open the hood. He did not need to make a special tool. He says it only took him about five seconds to do it. My husband has a 96 Ford truck that he just purchased and has been restoring it to get it back to its original.
