my hood won't line up when closed!!
the drivers side is PERFECT but the passengers side sticks up. I dropped the catch for it down AS much as possible but still nada! and the bar or whatever that locks in is identical to the drivers side which doesnt adjust unless i bent it anyway.

WHAT DO?

 

Those laches with the cables are a serious pain. The latches actually are supposed to grab those "bars" and pull them down. If there is too much slack in the cable it just grabs it but doesn't pull it down. The cable runs across from the drivers side latch. Losen the set screw and pull all the slack you can out of it. That's what I did. It takes some trial and error trust me but you should be able to get it. You might have to tinker with both latches to get it to lie flat. That's all I can remember from that job. Oh yeah don't get it so tight to where you snap the cable because it is so hard to latch it completely. It should lie flush not negative of the rest of the car.

Good luck

 

alright, much appreciated! had no idea that was part of the adjustment for the hood, but makes sense!!

 

Neither did I until I looked at my dad's hood on his xjs. The fact that the latches pull the hood down is key :-)

 

I am having the same problem for months now and still couldn't figure it out. The XJS hood closing/latch is a poor design in my opinion. I never had a car that I can't close the hood. Look at the older BMWs in the 80s and early 90s which have opposite hood too but the BMW design is much better.

 

lol i like the hood latches on XJSs i just didn't know how to even that out till now. I don't have a problem with it closing, the idiot PO must have tried yanking it open one time because the metal piece near the brake reservoir is loose and has been re-rivetted. I like how solid it feels to pull the latch and let it go though, rather than a little plasticy spring loaded thing.

I can't remember how those BMW hoods latch, i remember liking it, though im not much on the metal bar on the front end that goes all the way across.

Either way I think we can agree that its nice that it has struts and not one of those dumb metal bars to keep the hood open.friggin coat hangers...

 

I've noticed the same problem on my '91 XJS, I have to have someone apply a little pressure when latching and then after a while of driving i notice the passenger corner eek its way up and start vibrating, obviously not fully latched. Where exactly is the set screw?

 

Ed's Jaguar

Eds site has a wealth of info including bonnet adjustment procedure. Thanks for keeping your site open Ed

 

My bonnet locks on both sides, but it is elevated about 1/2 inch. What is the school solution to bring it down?

 

If your car is pre-facelift:

First check that the little rubber topped bolts on the scuttle that it shuts down against are not holding it too high. If so, pull off the rubber cover, loosen the locking nut and screw them in.

Second, the entire latch each side can be adjusted up or down a bit by loosening the four fixings (huge pozis, hard to get at the lower ones) and moving the latch in its slots. I replaced the pozis with bolts.

Third, the rods bolted up to the bonnet that the latches closes on can get bent out of alignment. Unbolt and put in a large vice and squeeze the S bend shape a bit flatter to enable the bonnet to be pulled down a touch more.

The facelifts have a different mechanism and I cannot help ther as I have never looked at one.
Greg

 

Bigwiki, your 1994 car is a facelift model and has a different mechanism for hood latches. Yours are spring loaded and are tripped open by pulling on the lever in the cabin. The latches are adjustable for height by loosening the latch mounting bolts. This will allow you to move the latch up, down and laterally. Greg also mentioned the rubber bumpers that the hood contacts when closed. Check them for a setting too high to allow the hood to close to a level with the cowl. These latches should be closed one at a time by pressing down on the hood directly above the latch. A little fussy but they work.
RagJag

 

My first thought was to lower the latches. but, looking at the latches they did not appear to be movable. I will look again and hope there is an adjustment.......Thanks guys appreciate your info!

By the way it's a 1993 Coupe

 

A closer look at the latches indicated they are adjustable, but unfortunately they were at maximum depression. I'm going to see if increasing the diameter of the bonnet bar will bring the hood down
I do have a problem with the cable stop on the latch to cabin. It is Not OEM and tends to slip. Cant seem to find a replacement. Any thoughts on locating the proper part?
Thanks for your interest
Afterburner

 

See Above
No luck with increasing diameter of the bar
Success with this procedure: Take all slack out of latch by inserting a large screwdriver between the car body and the latch. Then take all slake out of the cable. Insure the cable stop is bottomed. Tighten cable stop.
The key is to remove the slack from the latch. You might be able to increase the downward pull ot the latch by over correcting the latch slack. But, care would have to be exercised because of the tension placed nn the cabin cable.
Then do the same to the other latch
(Still need a cable stop!)

Added later: If you have trouble threading the cable end, Use a small lengh of shrink electrical insulation When heated it will shrink and pull the cable end together. Might also work by uniting the cables for a pull through for installing a new cable unit

Added eight hours later: Per Greg in France: " Unbolt and put in a large vice and squeeze the S bend shape a bit flatter to enable the bonnet to be pulled down a touch more." This is a delicate operation because the latch must travel between the hood and the bar. Squeezing the S bend shape a bit flatter may result in the latch unable to penetrate the opening between the bonnet and bar.
In my opinion the best results come by insuring the bars are parallel to the hood, removing the slack in the cables, repositioning the latches, and setting clearance on the rubber stops. This opinion was established after eight hours of frustration trying to align the >!$>x!@ bonnet/hood or whatever!

 

"These latches should be closed one at a time by pressing down on the hood directly above the latch. A little fussy but they work." (As stated above)
This becomes a two man job because of the distance between the lever and the far side latch. I don't believe Jaguar intended this action in their original design. The latch and cables, when activate, and properly aligned will pull the bonnet down and lock it in place even with the cowl. Properly aligned is the key!

 

Afterburner1, your car should be a facelift and should have spring loaded latches which snap shut upon being pressed by the hood mounted bar. One man operation.
RagJag

 

Jaguar has the worst hood design. The problem is that Jaguar hood doesn't has "arms" to guide it when it comes down. I have old BMW and Datsun with reverse hood. They have guiding arms and none of them has hood alignment problem.

 

I think the latches are a good design. If the hood is high its not latched properly. If the cable brakes the hood unlatches. Can you imagine if it stayed locked after cable broke. That would be a disaster.

 

BcXj, On facelift XJS cars do stay latched if the cable breaks. Your car is different. That design was sufficient. I can see no good reason the Jag engineers decided to change it. It is a near disaster when that happens, however it is remedied by removing the bonnet hinge bolts to reach to latches. Difficult but can be done.
Cheers, RagJag

 

Oops. My mistake. Seems like the engineers screwed the pooch on that one. I can imagine thats a flippen nightmare.