I bought a 95 XJS coupe six months and have been fixing things here and there. The hood was closing fine when I bought it but now it cannot be closed anymore. I have following the instruction in the owner's manual and tried many times. The hood comes down but it never locks in position.

Personally, I think the hook locking mechanism is a bad design. Older BMW hood close this way also but they have a rail to guide the long hood in position before the locking. Any tips?

It's pretty annoying with an open hood. When the car hits 70mph, the wind can actually blow the hood to open by a few inches. So, I cannot drive faster than 70mph. Good thing is that at least I will never get a speeding ticket.

 

On the 95, do you have to place the bonnet flat, then pull the lever inside the cabin to lock it ? Or by that time had they (finally) went to a more standard bonnet that you could slam shut ?

If you still have the first style, then I sometimes find I have to go to the top of the bonnet corners and push the bonnet sideways a little before it will drop down below the catches and then I can close it and get it to lock from the inside as its supposed to do.

I have had the bonnet come loose on a few occasions at speed..... all I can say is that it tends to make you slow down, and does also help the engine cooling quite a bit !

 

This might be the problem. When I drop the bonnet, I notice it is slightly mis-aligned to the driver side. That might be why it couldn't lock in place. Any ideas what's common cause for bonnet mis-alignment? Would that be the gas shocks or the hinges?

Thanks.

 

@bigwiki

I guess if you had one really bad strut, and one really good one, it could push the bonnet out of alignment when you tried to close it ?

Otherwise it could be just out of position, which would require you to adjust the hinges. I did this on mine.... it's pretty easy, but better if you can have an assistant with you to help you (one holds the bonnet, the other slackens and tightens the bolts

 

You would've probably already noticed this, but I was viewing an XJS sale ad on YouTube the other day and the lower fixing bracket for the left side hold-open strut was
Detached from the fender. Maybe check you don't have a cracked weld that is introducing some play?

 

Thanks for the suggestions guys. Visually the struts look good and seems to work fine. I'll remove the struts to see if the hook can close properly.

 

On my 95 XJS, this happens occastionally, and each time I've had to pull down on the locking arm on the hood in order to correct the problem. Seems it is forced up somehow, not allowing it to go low enough into the locking mechanism to actually lock in position. A short piece of pipe or tubing will give you enough pressure to bend it. Only a slight amount of pressure is needed. If you do it too hard you may distort the corner of the hood. You'll see what I mean when you start pulling on the arm.