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I am looking to buy a 1978 coupe. Problem is I cannot release the passenger side hood latch. The hood release handle is very tight but the drivers side will release but not the passenger side. I have pushed, pulled, twisted the hood at the latch area but nothing is working. Can I get to the latch by going through the pass side front wheel well? The owner can't seem to figure it out either. I have looked at threads and can't find a solution. Any help will be greatly appreciated. I am ready to cut the hood open.
Frustrated to say the least.
Mike
I feel your pain. I cannot say if the 1978 is the same but on my 1976 the engineers at GM thought of this problem and provided a clunky but workable solution. On the wiper Bay Area side of the firewall there is a plastic cap plug that with the correctly bent tool(steel rod) you can push the tab and release the latch from the pin that is on the lower side of the hood itself. This is a bit tricky but it can be done. I know from experience. Below is a picture of where that cap plug is located on the firewall. Much harder to see when hood is in the way. I do not have a picture of the hood latch itself but maybe another forum member does and can post it to indice exactly where you need to push to release the latch. You are basically doing what the cable does. Good luck. Spring assembly removed but you can see plastic plug. Top left is where hole is located. You can see access hole has blue tape on it, plug not installed.
The hood on my 73 would not open. I had saved numerous discussion on the Forum and saved them for the day my hood would not open. I tried for more than an hour to release the hood “latch” using a long flat bar (over 15 inches long), bending it per the instructions Well, I finally gave up and removed the rocker panel and triangular splash shield, then stuck my arm (from beneath the car to push on the latch with my finger. After the hood was opened, I tried to get the long bar to move the latch and was unsuccessful. Even with the hood open, it seemed that the bar was not able to correctly push on the latch, to release the hood, the bar cannoit be straight and maybe the bar was bending too easily.
They sell a kit, but I just ran a thin cable from the latch through the firewall and made a loop at the end.
Very easy to reach under the hood. Pulling it releases the hood if the cable from in the car lets go.
Actually I open the hood with it pretty much most of the time now.
Of course if the cross cable breaks all bets are off, but one could be put on the other side also.
If one side releases and the other does not the cross cable needs to be tightened so the slack is removed.
Now that the hood is open check how to adjust the cable, it may be on the drivers side.
Hood relaese issue
