What to do if your hood release cable breaks

I'm sure most of you have already seen this little truck, but I want to make sure it's officially posted up. The best thing to do is lube all the associated mechanisms on a regular basis (like with oil changes).

It happens all too often. An MJ/XJ owner reaches down to pop the hood and the latch release handle comes off in their hand. If it happens to you, don't fret, it's not as bad as it might seem. Crawl under the front of your Jeep and see if you can reach up past the radiator (this can be next-to-impossible for owners with the aux fan or front steel guard). Now feel around and tug on the skinny little bar that connects the two corner latches. It's waaaaay up at the top. Sometimes this works, but usually it only pops the passenger side. See, the bar pulls on the pass side, but PUSHES on the drivers side. If it doesn't pop open, remove the headlight and headlight bucket. You'll see this bolt:

It is one of two bolts that hold the bracket that the hood latch, um, latches to. There's two of them though. The second can be seen here above the first:

I dismantled most of my front end before I discovered these two little gems, hopefully you won't have to. It's a tight fit, but it's been proven that a ratchet can get at both. Then the whole assembly pops up with the hood. Now open the hood, free the bottom half, and reattach it to the Jeep. Replacing the cable is pretty straight forward.

Jeep on!

--Pete

With mine it wasn't the handle breaking. My release rod touched the battery and went kaboom, and lit the engine bay on fire...

Thanks for the past help Pete... This should be stickied.

That reminds me, the latest issue of 4WD mag, or maybe it was peterson's 4x4 had an article on the crappy things about cherokees. They didn't know how to release the hood this way. They seemed to think that it was perfectly acceptable to just get the sawzall and cut until it popped open. While normally I'm not against sawzalling offending metal, I found it a little odd that they didn't know a better way.

sounds like a PITA!

If only I could find the photos of the hole that we had to cut in my fender back after I painted my 1989 when I was still in High School.

If I had only known about this back then.

i think if my hood latch broke..id prolly use hood pins haha

they look cool on my cuda

Way ahead of you. :D

What are those? Fence hooks with a bar through them, connected to a cupboard handle?

Pure sex.

No and maybe. $10 stainless hood pin set, a couple $1 handles from the hardware store, and some stainless picture frame hanging wire between them.

Pure functionality. :D

Pure functionality. :D

thats what matters.

looks good pete!

what if the hood release cable sticks in the open position? Ive PB blasted the hell out of it, 1 in 5 times I go to close the hood, it won't stay closed and takes a good 10 minutes of playing with the latches and a can of PB blaster to get them to close and latch.,

the sumbtch just broke!

Now I'm on my laptop, outside, using pete's instructions to get the front end apart.

Might be that the little return spring is dying. Or that the cable is getting stuck and not retracting all the way. Or that one of the latches is still sticking. And how on earth did I miss your post? :hmm:

The cable broke right at the handle, so my dad and I pulled it out, and just reattached the handle and hung it between the rad and the grille. pure functionality.

the bar connecting the 2 latches broke on mine so i brought out the bfh and a pry bar and broke a latch off the one side that wouldnt open wouldnt suggest if you don't wanna pin the hood or put a new hood on it

Undoing those bolts would still have opened the hood.

I'm going to locking hoodpins if mine breaks.

Man, I wish I'd know that a few years ago....my cable hadn't snapped, but the little plastic thinger wouldn't stay in the bracket at the front of the hood. I left my lights on at work once and couldn't open the hood to jump it. So we utilize the crack in my header from when I hit the dear and...yeah.

Used to be what my driveway looked like when I lived at my dad's.

1 1/2 of the blue ones are gone. The rest of the one on the right is in my shed, or attached to my MJ

I owe you big time Pete! Saw this post a thousand times, but I never believed that something like this would happen to me. Best sticky EVER :bowdown: :cheers:

i had that happen to me at work were the handle came off into my hand i just got some channel locks and pulled the cabnle with that

it happened to me, put I punched my way into the engine compartment. Installing hoodpins now.

:)

Maybe the '86 is just wierd, but I didn't have to go through nearly all this much today when it happened to me, I just unscrewed the grille, and reached up and pushed the (single) latch to the side the same way that the cable would have done, worked like a charm.

86 MJs have a single hood latch in the middle. 87+ have 2 latches, located in the corners of the hood. They are notorious for sticking and a real pain to grab hold of (especially if you have the skid plate or E-fan).

OIC, good to know there's at least one thing about my 86 that is nicer to have than the later models!

OIC, good to know there's at least one thing about my 86 that is nicer to have than the later models!

X2 :agree:

I never thought it would happen to me. I'm so glad this writeup was here, Thanks Pete.

Happy Thanksgiving!