There are many videos online on how to open the stuck hood latch. However they all revolve around drilling holes in the car. I made a video tutorial on how to open it with far less damage.

 

Great tip, thank you. I wish I had known about this before I drilled mine!

A few tips for everyone before this happens to you:
1. Take a look at both latches with the hood open, so you can orient yourself for when (not if) this happens to you, to get familiar with the angle you'll need to place the tool, or where you might need to drill, if it comes to that.
2. Better still: take the latches off and repair them now, before this happens. It's only a matter of time, and well worth your time to do some preventive maintenance.
3. Since I failed to do any preventive maintenance until it was too late, I had to drill one side. I went ahead and drilled the other side too, and I put plugs in both holes to seal them up. Hopefully I won't have to use the holes, because I think I fixed the problem in a way that should keep the cable from falling out of the latch, which is usually what causes this issue.

 

Nifty process mustangtyson, ...that rod you used is called a glow stick in my industry. A true glow stick will literally vaguely glow when shoved up into a dark cavity with a flashlight held on the end to find when you have someone else to get it, say in a ceiling. Other than that, its just a pulling rod for wire.

First, for the repair area...Use a hole plug, they come in 1/4", 3/8", 1/2" etc...they come in black or white primarily and can be found in the specialty parts bins of the big Orange box or bit Blue box, even Amazon, but those are usually in bulk. They have clip in wings for retention. Be sure the hole you made is drilled to size, roundness is important for these.

Then do as you state for the paint prep and spray. Take the plug and insert it, it will look like a factory plug and can be popped back out at anytime for any possible future latch issues. You may want to put a dab of silicone around head lip to prevent dust from getting in and to assist in holding it in place.

 

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

 

I had to do it years ago. After watching the video, I think it was a lot less fiddly to actuate the latch with a screwdriver through the "new" hole I drilled. But hey, if your hood latch cable breaks far from home or if one is just gun-shy about drilling near that battery cable (I wouldn't want to disconnect the battery and lose my emissions monitors less than a month before its annual inspection), then its great to have an option that could be done with just manual hand tools. MacGyver and the A-team would be proud.

 

But I didn't drill any holes... I'm confused about why you are offering solutions to close holes drilled.

 

Where did I say you drilled any holes? I said to use this plug you need to drill the holes round and to size.

 

Thanks for the suggestion. There are no holes to fill. I'm using a hole that a tab from the fender liner goes into. It was already there and i did not drill it. So we don't need a plug because the fender liner winged push pin deal goes back in there. You don't have to expand the hole so the wings still clip in.

 

Yes, we are certainly glad you have no holes to plug Now all you have to do is reshape the
metal that was flexed around the existing hole because it was not in a good position to reach
the desired affected latch. The video shows that metal flexing as you attempted to reach
the latch with various tools and I am not at all certain how you figured out the angle your tools
needed to go to get to the part of the latch that needed to be pushed without the hood already
opened. I am all for alternatives and I do appreciate your giving us another one.

 

A friend has the same car and shot me a video of inside the other car hood with this idea. After i switched from using a screwdriver to using the cable fishing rod (glowstick) i was able to poke around for less than 5 minutes and get it. You kinda have to use the glowstick to feel out the area and angle it around while looking at a picture of under the hood for reference. But i can confirm i was able to open it with my hood that was stuck shut using just a picture of another car and these instructions. Maybe we should make a poll to see the average time it takes someone to open their hood using this method. LOL Its frustrating but you will get it.

 

Good idea. Did you just drill a little hole in the plastic?

Word of caution ⛔️
In other posts users recommend to just use pliers to squeeze the lips to make it more difficult for the line to get out. I tried it and learned the hard way NOT to do it. The metal snapped.

Any other ideas like the one from RandyS on fixing it so we have no issues in the future?

My ‘98 XJ8L just hit 40k miles… what a happy/sad day.

 

About the only other thing to do is find a junkyard or eBay one.. HNC2400AC ..replace so you have a complete piece and tie down as RandyS shows, I did likewise years ago.