I need some help here. I go to open my hood. Hood does not pop up and the lever inside is very easy to pull, as if the hood were already open. The problem is that it is not open.

Being a Toyota I could go ahead and weld the thing shut, but it would be nice to check on things every now and then.

Any bright ideas before I drive an hour to the dealer?

 

What happens alot of times is that the hood latch doesn't get lubed and so it won't release the hood. Get someone else to slightly bang on the hood while you pull on the hood lever, that should work...

 

I had that happen to me before on my s10 and you could still feel the "pop" of the latch when you pull on the release. It sounds more like the cable was maybe disconnected somewhere, but I'm definitely no mechanic lol

 

man, i dunno - if the release has play "as though the hood were open", I'd be concerned about either the positioning of the latch, or the health of the cable.

there's only one way to know for sure, and that would be to get the hood open.

if it were me, I would probably first try getting the latch to reset, as described above. then I would jack up the front end and get at it from underneath. If you are really desperate, the only other thing I can think of involves damage to the grille.

oh - did you get up under the dash and see if the cable is taught at the pack of the release?

 

im not sure if this will help but my dad has has the same problem in his car. if im correct, all you have to do is pull the lever on the inside, and have someone open it at the same time.... it worked for us so yeah

 

ps. no banging required

 

Er, the little lever one flips under the hood and the mechanism one 'unlocks' by pulling the handle under the dash are to separate, independent locking systems.

Sounds like the cable is broken/disconnected at one end or the other, and the primary latch isn't releasing.

If the problem isn't at the dashboard end, I think the only way to figure it out may be to fiddle with another xB who's hood latch still works, to see if there is any way to get to the mechanism from outside to release it.

Good luck!

Tom

 

No luck with the banging on the hood. The cable is attached to the inside lever. I may jack it up and take a look from underneath.

 

try pulling on the cable attached to the lever. does it seem like the cable is attached to anything, or does it seem as though there is a lot of slack?

 

if it's broken, I am going to think about attaching a reserve cable and threading it to an easy location under the front bumper

 

The cable is attached at both ends.

 

I just went out and checked mine to see if I could help.
The cable sheath runs from the hood latch over the driver's side headlight, then disappears into the fender. It is a clear (but long) shot under the front wheelwell up to that area, but you'd have to have 4ft long arms to reach it. The sheatch is attached to the mechanism, so I'm not sure what good it'd do anyway.
The other option is to sacrifice your upper grill. Once it is out of the way, all you would have to do is reach in under the lock and you can flip it with your finger, or use a screwdriver.
If you had a long enough piece of metal rod or something, you might be able to get to the same place from under the car.
Pics...
http://webpages.charter.net/heckel11...ion/hoodlatch/

 

oh, wait....

take the emblem out....

pic coming one sec!

 

Based on your 9th photo, the cable has a ball end that can slip in and out of the ball holder in the latch. Maybe his ball has come out of the holder. Maybe that can happen if someone works the hood release while the hood is open?

 

I tent to doubt that has happened since I can hit a stop when pulling on the cable. If it came out, I should be able to pull it quite a bit.

BIG thanks to ajayaitch, those pics are awesome! Thanks a TON.

I am off to screw with this some more.

 

No prob.

If you look at pic 2, you'll see a silver screw. That's under the latch. There's a notch in the bracket which you can see in 9. You can see the screw again in pic 3 and 8. Pic 4 shows my finger on the lock.

 

Not that I'm against the rousing spirit of do-it-yourself-ed-ness, but you could always try

1. Bring car to dealer
2. Complain

and just in case they try something when they invariably give your car three more problems while trying to solve the first problem,

3. Videotape the entire thing.

Good luck

 

this picture shows how moronic my 'hey take the emblem out' thought was:


oh, and btw, ZOMGXB - The first post says clearly, "Any bright ideas before I drive an hour to the dealer?"
huge NS factor right there.

 

try looking under your dash behind the release lever. as you can see in the pics of the underhood side, the dash side has the same "ball", when working at the plant that makes Toyotas, we often had the ends come disconnected, the oend under the dash just fits into a plastic slot.

if you can get to it , it is easy, with a pair of pliers just pull the cable , when you do you will see how to get it back into that end, if this is the problem that is.

sometimes the cable would come out of one of the clips holding it in place creating enough slack so it felt like it was doing it's job but it wasn't.

if nothing else, try a pry bar (jk)

 

any updates ben?