S70 Hood Release Cable Broke Off

[bmdubya1198]

Luckily this hasn;t happened to me yet but it is common, I have read about it solved in two different ways:

(1) pull the corner light, reach in and release the lever. You have to do it for both sides.
(2) reach up from underneath and release the lever. You have to do it for both sides.

Here is a good post about it, I am sure there are many others: http://volvospeed.com/vs_forum/topic/29 ... od-closed/

Don't know why I didn't try that. I'll try this out.

We put the car on ramps yesterday to see if we could find any way to release the latch. I couldn't see anything except for the black release cable jacket. We tried pulling on that, but that did nothing. The splash guard had already broken off, so everything was open, but the radiator and intercooler were in the way. That and the engine was already so hot, we were burning ourselves trying to reach up.

Hopefully we can get it opened with the coat hanger, and once he gets the new cable, I'm sure he'll take very good care of the release system. This has been pretty bad, especially with the passenger side unlocked and bouncing all over the place on the highway. This has been a problem since day one. When he bought the car, the release handle was sitting on the floor electrical taped to the release cable.

[MrAl]

Another idea, which would be interesting, would be to replace the two hood 'catches' with square type "U" bolts, that run up through the hood and using fancy cap nuts to hold them onto the hood. In the event of failure, the U bolts would be unbolted and the hood would open.

I'm trying to envision four cap bolts sticking through the hood of my sloping curvy seductive P2 body and it just isn't doing it for me...

I think the secret here is lubricating these hood releases when they start getting stiff and replacing the cable if that doesn't move freely.

Hi again,

Well, think of it as jewelry

Seriously, check out some of the race cars. They have "hood pins" sticking up through the hood with various ways of capping them, mostly with push pins that push through the sides. The push pins along with the hood pins form a "T" shape that makes it impossible to open the hood without removing the push pins. I guess they want an extra measure of safety when racing down the strip at 250mph.
They tend to 'add' to the car rather than take away from it, in a way. They are usually all chromed up and fancy looking.

They also make actual hood locks, which is similar except instead of seeing a 'pin' sticking up through the hood (with another thin pin sticking through that) all you see is two chrome 'locks', almost like a door lock, only in the hood itself, and one on each side of the hood probably near where we have our hood latches now. The mechanism requires a tubular pin lock key to unlock, and after unlocking both sides then the hood will open in the normal way. But that would work all by itself, without the latches i think, and it would look very nice, like a racing car <chuckle>. For mine it would have to be a racing wagon
A pair sells for about 25 dollars (USD).

Really nice looking too, they would look like they came with the car from the factory. In fact, i think one of the Chevelles came with hood pins from the factory, but not sure if any cars do anymore or not.

It would take some guts to chop off the old latch things though, and then drill two holes through the hood. Better get the alignment right the first time

[MrAl]

Luckily this hasn;t happened to me yet but it is common, I have read about it solved in two different ways:

(1) pull the corner light, reach in and release the lever. You have to do it for both sides.
(2) reach up from underneath and release the lever. You have to do it for both sides.

Here is a good post about it, I am sure there are many others: http://volvospeed.com/vs_forum/topic/29 ... od-closed/

Don't know why I didn't try that. I'll try this out.

We put the car on ramps yesterday to see if we could find any way to release the latch. I couldn't see anything except for the black release cable jacket. We tried pulling on that, but that did nothing. The splash guard had already broken off, so everything was open, but the radiator and intercooler were in the way. That and the engine was already so hot, we were burning ourselves trying to reach up.

Hopefully we can get it opened with the coat hanger, and once he gets the new cable, I'm sure he'll take very good care of the release system. This has been pretty bad, especially with the passenger side unlocked and bouncing all over the place on the highway. This has been a problem since day one. When he bought the car, the release handle was sitting on the floor electrical taped to the release cable.

Hi,

I posted another reply to a different post before this one.

[See also high res photos of the latch and lever far below added later to this post]

You "might" be able to reach up from the bottom if you take off the splash guard. It depends if your car has the secondary air pump mounted or not. If you can get your hand to the little lever, you tilt that (might be hard to tilt by hand though) and the hood latches should let go because that's exactly what the hood cable does, it pulls that lever, and that unleashes both sides.
If you cant get your hand up there, maybe a coat hanger like you said, but if you can pull that level you got it made. I havent tried this yet either.
The lever has to be held or caught from the bottom, the part that sticks downward, and it has to be tilted from left to right not top to bottom so you cant really pull on it i dont think, you have to push it. By "left to right" i mean in the direction of the drivers side side panel, not toward the passenger side. It only has to move about 3/8 of an inch or so and that releases the dang hood latches.
The normal hood cable ties into that latch but up a little farther on that metal lever. When the cable handle is pulled, it pulls that lever from left to right, so you'll be doing the same thing, if you can get to it some how.
I will probably try this myself too. I didnt try it yet because when i went out to examine the latching mechanism (again) i only took better pictures so i could come inside where it's cooler and examine them and figure out what is what. I will post a picture in a minute or two after i dig it out.

Here are the pics.
Pic1 inset points to the area where the cable is although you cant see it in that pic, and on the right points to the lever in the direction of travel (arrow pointing from right to left, which points toward the drivers side side panel).
Pic 2 shows the lever from slightly different angle, and direction to push lever.
Pics3 and 4 show close ups of the lever from the point of view of the passenger side with camera pointed toward the drivers side. The lever is the thing with the hole in it at the bottom of it and a square notch up a little more, and it is near the center of the pictures.

[bmdubya1198]

Very interesting, and good to know. My only problem is getting in there. It doesn't appear that I could go in from the turn signal. I just hope that I can get in from the bottom. All that we need to do is get that hood opened once. Then the headlight bulb can be replaced and the car can be driven at night and we can install a new hood release cable.
Thanks for your help so far, and hopefully we can get that damned thing opened this week!

[JimBee]

Is there another S70 you could look at? Used car lot? Junk yard? Food store parking lot and wait for the owner to return and ask to view it.

It's hard to see the trip lever from beneath. On my 850, I studied it with the hood open and the turn signal housing removed. If you know how to access it you might get to it that way.

[bmdubya1198]

I could try a junkyard. That way we could get all the parts too.

[MrAl]

Hi,

That sounds like a good idea. Then you could even unbolt it and turn it up i think to examine the latch and lever a lot better. With mine i had to use a high power flashlight just to illuminate it for the pictures as it is very hard to see in daylight. Probably better to view at night with a decent white LED flashlight.

Eventually i will do something with mine too, just not sure which way i want to do it yet.

I wish you all the luck in getting it opened soon, and when you do it would be nice if you could tell the rest of us how you did it. I am sure there will be people in the future that will be very appreciative, including myself.

[bmdubya1198]

I'll definitely let you all know what we do!

[MrAl]

Any progress?

[mika]

I think it was CN that posted he was able to add a "third emergency" cable, since the lever has an extra loop for a bicycle cable. He also said that one of the hood locks tends to have problems more, so that is the one he jerry rigged. I am going to dig it up, as I NEVER WANT TO HAVE THIS PROBLEM! I had a latch freeze after driving in an ice storm and I was panicked that I would not be able to open the latch. Luckily it thawed and I opened it.