Hood latch jammed

[James]

Well, a while back I kind of went down the road with my '94 F-150 and the hood wasn't...ehm...secured......
All in all, it bent or forced the hinges to move, making the hood un-aligned.
I lined it back up and got it all nice..except now in attempting to see if it would work, the hood no longer opens, what's basically wrong is it has two hooks to latch on when it's closed, a big tall thin one, and a short stubby thick one, the thin one is latched...
I've tried all the pressure I can put on the opening latch in the grill, the release inside doesn't work, it's not latched down far enough for that.

I know this isn't a place for newer trucks, but I was curious if anyone had just happened to get a hood jammed on one of the older trucks and had any nifty ideas about how to get it up(Aside from going from crawling up in-front of the engine on old trucks and pushing up by hand, or cutting the hood off )

[gmcjimmy88]

I am a little confused by the thin and thick latches. It sounds as though the latch (from inside the truck) does not latch at all. The latch you normally can reach from outside the truck (the safety latch) is the one that is stuck? It may be that the hinges are bent enough to put a bind on everything. You could try using a prybar on the latch to release it? Or a 12 inch cut-off wheel and cut the entire latch assembly and go with hood pins LOL.

[Thunderfoot]

You may have to push the hood down just a little bit to relieve some of the pressure on the latch so that you move the lever... not sure other then that... others may have some more ideas...

[kaptnkaos]

Hey James...

After letting my '68 CS sit for a few years, my latch was stuck as well.
I couldn't get it open for anything.

I sprayed it down with a liberal amount of WD-40 and got it to open...
Once open, I sprayed the whole thing for while using the tube to clean out all the rust. After that, I used some spray on white grease to lube the latch. I haven't had any problems with it since.
It might have some rust build up and possibly could be why it didn't latch right in the first place...

KaptnKAOS

[fordman]

i have a 94 and i push down slightly on the hood when i flick the lever inside the grill. if that doesn't do it you can kind of reach in between the grill and hood and move the latch to one side to release the safety. latch. the safety latch is the lever inside the grill. but it could stuck so thats why the screwdriver.

[ezernut9mm]

yep, depending on how much it was "tweeked", you may have to put alot of pressure on the hood while pulling on the lever.

[rjewkes]

how did you strighten it? new hinges? if you just twisted until it lined up close or pried it until it looked good your hinges are still outa wwack. if ne hinges then you may have some other parts near the hinges goofed up.

[fordman]

those hinges are pretty cheesy. i threw my hood open one day and the hinge tried to fold backwards. when i went to close it while i was still mad it bent the hood. i was able to fix the hinge and push most of the bend out of the hood. but i haven't messed with it since. it still has a slight bow in it right at the hinge area.

[foghorn]

Now i didnt read the rest of the replys but i would say take the grille out and remove the latch bolts.




Foggy

[James]

Well, my dad being in the auto-parts business knew a guy that did bodywork and he got it open for me and didn't charge me
after messing with it for about 15 minutes then looking at me and essentially went "What the heck? Did you hit something?" but eventually took the latch off from reaching inside the grille
So I have two options, either replace the hood hinges(Or) try to bend mine out, I'm not too sure either way

Now as long as I don't try to "Fix" it again, I'll be fine for a while and have access to the engine

(WD-40 rocks, hosed my tail gate hinges in it weeks ago, but took this long to soak in, so I no longer have to wrestle with the tail gate to get it open also, some type of spray-on lubricant that is used in body shops also works really nicely on hood latches)

(Safety latch release on the front of the truck is suppose-to be like | that, right now it's like / )

[James]

I actually took one off and held it next to another hinge out of a truck that wasn't messed up, it didn't seem bent, but I do know my springs were hit heavy though, some of the metal on them is bent

[fordman]

yea if the springs are bent i would get new ones.

[James]

would it be best to try to get new springs from a parts place or to try to rummage at a junkyard?

[fordman]

i don't know if you can get just the springs. i would try the salvage yard first i think.

[averagef250]

The newer hinges on everything are pretty cheezy. A couple friends and I have a communal 1977 F-250 4x4 wood truck. I stuffed an EFI six in it a few months back and it's one of the best running old trucks you'd ever drive which is the only thing saving it from scrap for the past decade. It's not too rusty, but there isn't a straight piece of metal on the truck. It's been rolled, it took a telephone pole at 40 MPH, it gets scraped along trees and rocks all the time and hauled more firewood than you could shake a stick at.

Needless to say, there is no real lining up of the hood anymore. I spent half a day last weekend with a friend trying to get the hood latch to open without the use of a sledge and crowbar. Took a bunch of oil, precise hammering and tons of patience, but we eventually got it. Guess my point is these darned latches can be more tricky than a guy'd suspect once the trucks they're on get tweaked a bit.