Hood Problem

[Z3speed4me]

ok welllll i was gonna change my oil today, but the latch thing on the drivers side that opens the hood isnt working, i pull it back like as hard as i can and the hood doesnt pop open, it seems like the cable isnt attached or tight enough or something but the hood isnt opening and i need it to so how do i fix this?????

[///MDex]

Sorry, that's all I got today.........

[Z3speed4me]

haha...i think not

[Coupe Dejour]

Is it already "cracked" open and you just can't tell?

[Z3speed4me]

nope not cracked open at all, the latch will not release the lever inside the hood, and i have NO clue how to open it otherwise, i have a bad feeling this is going to lead to taking apart somethings...

[IslandS62]

This happens often on E30s. The hood latch cable gets stretched. On E30 there is a manual release toward the front of the car. Check the owner's manual to see if there is something for our cars (I don't remeber there being one though). The other thing you can try is to un-bolt the release latch from the car and then give it a pull. Unbolting it will allow you to pull it further and harder than normally possible.

[Z3speed4me]

yea i might take that panel off later so i can tug at the wire some more and then once i HOPEFULLY get in the hood tighten it up wherever it is that i can, it feels like its still attached because it pulls and i can hear it pull, but its just not tight enough to pop it open, ill try to figure it out later and maybe push and pull a little bit when i have someone else around, maybe if i pull on the lever and someone juggles the hood around it might pop for me....i really hope this isnt too much of a problem because ive had enough of them lately....thanx though ill try this stuff out later this afternoon

[momoboy]

Removing the lever won't help as the cable is not attached to the lever, it's attached to another mechanism. I've removed the lever and cover to get to my speakers enough times to remember this. Once you remove the cover and lever though, you should be able to, at some point, see the cable feed into the mechanism. I'm not sure the path it travels but at some point, you should see the cable behind some sheetmetal. If you can pull on the cable to remove some slack, THEN pull the lever, you might get it to work. It should't take much as I'm sure it hasn't stretched THAT much.

[Z3speed4me]

ok problemo solved...had my friend pull the lever back and i pushed the hood around a bunch, i pushed it down hard one time and i popped into place somehow, then i could put my fingers open to fully get the hood up, the little mechanism that actually releases the spring to the hood had a crack in it so it wasnt totally tight when the lever was pulled because the crack allowed it to pull more then it should have so i pulled the cable a little bit and zip tied it to a spot by the headlight to make it tighter and now it works perfect again, zip ties fix so much stuff i love those things...it will do until i get to the dealer to get this thing whatever it would be called that i need...but its the little black plastic hood release mechanism that allows the hood to pop...

[byl]

Put it in the DIY section, might happen to others.

[Z3speed4me]

done...ill take a pic later maybe to show you what i mean about the broken plastic mechansm and where i zip tied....but my dad "stole" my camera for the day so i cant right now...