Driving home from work with my 4 yr. old little girl in back asleep in car seat. Remember my hood latch problems? Well, I thought the hoos was shut good and guess what?! At about 45 mph on a two lane road the wind cathes the hoos and wham! it pops up right in my face!! I didn't panick and looked through the slit at the bottom of the front window and steered her to the side of the road. Yes, the hood is bent, I was only 2 miles from home and just puttered and made it. The hood really doesn't look too bad and the latch and hood match up but it won't shut all the way. It was doing this before the incident so that is not why it won't shut. Look at the pic and advise please. I'm thinking this should be something simple and I need to fix it ASAP because I can't drive it for fear of happening again.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2273/...7c1b76.jpg?v=0

 

i dont see the proble,? how does the hood come all the way up? you have the primary latch and the secondary safety? how did it come open? i did have the same thing happen on my mustang once, somebody stole my hood pins while i was in a store and i didnt notice it when i came out and WAM! it busted the hood, smashed the cowl and cracked the windshield

 

It won't shut all the way on the primary and I think when I hit a bump it jarred the safety enough to pop it loose. In the pic is that how the primary latch should be positioned while the hood is up?

 

if memory is working, no it is only in the first stage of being latched, try to push the latch down and see if it clicks all the way down. i thin kyou may find that all you need to do is adjust your latch position and raise it up a little to get it to latch properly,

 

O.K. in the pic should the hood push it down and then fit in between the two prongs that are sticking out? When I push it down by hand it only goes down about a half inch and does not click. I got to go eat, the wife is calling. I'll be back in about 25 minutes.

 

i think so, if i am understanding what the "prongs are? just try to loosten the 2 8mm bolts and raise the whole latch a little bit, then see if the hood locks down

 

sorry to hear about that man...

 

I'll give a try and see what happens. Update coming soon.

 

Make sure before you try to shut it , you pull the release cable,, it is in the locked position in the pic.....

 

Yes, you are right but the cable is pulled and I just figured that out. So I flipped it up with a screwdriver and it shut perfect. I guess it's sticking so I need to pay attention to that every time I've got the hood up. I'll take a pic of the hood tomorrow, it really doesn't look bad at all. I guess it all turned out o.k. Maybe one day I'll get a hood that hasn't been damaged but for now you can't even hardly tell.

 

Lube it up good.....

 

Done! Thanks for your quick answers

 

did you fix it???

 

Ouch that must have been nice driving down the road atleast you kept calm underpressure, look at the brightside you got a reason to get a Cowl hood if you wanted one.

 

Yes, got it fixed and the hood really looks o.k. I'll take some pics and see if ya'll can tell any difference in the hood.