help opening hood.

[dcurbet]

Hello everyone
New here and need your help. I am helping revive a 98 M3 Convertible 5 sp which sat for 4 years. The car is in great shape but it sat (covered up) for over 3 years. The car was abandoned by someone with too much going on in a different part of the world and too many new toys to come back to the old ones. So i get to rescue the abandoned puppy.
Besides the obvious filter changes and fuel replacement, spark plugs fluids etc etc... brakes tires... besides all the obvious stuff... pls recommend anything you think i need to do.

But first thing is first and i need your help to.. open the hood. Cable broke when i tried 'the remove the corner lamp' trick. Looking around under the bumper and inside the grill all i see is plastic covers. The car has a Dinan supercharger installed (super cool!) and the intake seems to be right at the hood lock. I am suspecting all those plastic covers are part of the ducts for the supercharger air intake. I am not sure if can get this done without cutting so if thats the case i need to know where to get these parts which i will be cutting.
How do i open this hood open?

[realjones]

You mean it broke off at the hood lock itself? You can try a pair of vice grips on the cable through the corner lamp spot and give it a good yank if it's still attached and just the plastic sheath is messed up.

[NeilM]

When something similar happened to my car, it turned out to be the part of the plastic hood release handle to which the cable end attaches that had broken. I was able to open the hood by grabbing the footwell end of the cable with pliers. Be sure that's not the problem before doing anything else.

Neil

[JitteryJoe]

If Neil's idea does not work, you may be able to unscrew the hood lock pins from underneath the car. I had to do this once when I misaligned the pin and I could not release the hood. A pain but it may be your only option.

[dcurbet]

The cable is broken (i broke it) right past the turn signal assembly towards the headlight. I tried to grab it with needle nose pliers but was impatient and forced it too much and just shredded it....it broke. The handle inside is intact (i did take it off to check). At this point the hood is shut, the cable is torn right above the headlight and not visible.
Could you tell me more about unscrewing the hood lock pins from underneath the car? i would try that. Also i am still inclined to cut plastic intake pieces off if that would help. I will take some pictures and post tmrw. Thanks for all the pointers so far.

[shogun]

Have a look at this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_73XgTOYjY

[realjones]

Shredded is maybe not an issue if it is still attached to the hood lock. Fish for the cable and crank a pair of vice grips onto it then give it a yank. The plastic sheath doesn't matter put the grips right onto the steel cable. Spending an hour trying to fish the cable out to yank on it is way easier than six taking apart half the front end to get to the bolts. If you can get a vice grip onto the steel cable you'll have the hood open in 30 seconds.

[dcurbet]

thx guys - i ll take another look to see if i can get to the cable and renew my pulling effort. I agree that its worth it considering the almost certain alternative.

i ll watch the video but in my case i have the intake plastics for the supercharger which seem to be in the way and providing an effective cover for everything,

[AJLM34A]

I would go through the wheel well(which you will have to remove anyways since the hood release cable runs between the fender and the strut tower towards the A-pillar).

-Jack the car and take the wheel off.
-Remove the wheel well, it's only held in with 8mm screws and plastic 10mm nuts.
-You will have to remove either the plastic pork chop or M cover that goes between the bumper and the wheel,
pictured.
-From there you should be able to get to the hose clamp that holds the air filter on the SC inlet tube.

-Look up and find what's left of the cable and put some vise grips on it.
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