froggie3kb

Feel about as dumb as they come asking this lol but I have yet to find a definite answer to my problem.

The latch inside the car messed up on the previous owner so he showed me his "trick" when I bought it to get under the hood. Which was just pulling on the line under the driver side fender to get the release to unlatch and then of course pop the hood like normal. But when I went to pop it this time the line just basically pulled all the way out almost and didn't unlatch the hood so i'm up a creek without a paddle now haha.

I just bought this 96 civic about a month ago for a dd while I finished a couple other projects i've got going on and it was running fine. A CEL came on while on a 200 mile road trip this past weekend and the thing will barely run so I desperately need under the hood.

Soooo, long story short any possible way I can get the hood popped without that line to pull on to unlatch it?

Thanks a ton for any help at all guys, really appreciate it...

rick_rabies

jack up the charriot and get under it. wiggle your arm between the radiator and engine. use your hand to pop the popper dealy

speedooo

you have to get your hand up behind the bumper and get to the latch by hand...run a string/wire/anything through the front bumper as a temperary solution after you get it open

ifIexplode

You can get an open end wrench (10mm) up inbetween the bumper and hood, Just jack the front of your car up in the air and take the whole latch mechanism off.

delusionboi

on my eg, i just ripped of my front bumper but i dont recommend doing that.

apexi_rsx

i do believe ur going to still have to pop the latch and the latch does not come out form the top so u cant life the hood. just wiggle under there and pop the latch by hand then tie a string or something on it to tug until u fix it.

blowededup

You're asking us to provide information on breaking into the car? LOL

It was only a month ago... have you called the previous owner?

I don't know about you, but I am going out right now to relocate that cable....

NOFX

I wish I could remember how I managed this. My latch froze up so even though I could grab the cable it didn't do a thing. After fussing with it awhile we managed to pop the hood and removed the front grille until I could get the latch working again.

The bumper and grille can't be removed (without damage) before popping the hood. There are plastic clips (metal on 1996s I think?) that hold the top of the grille to the core support. Then there are screws (3 iirc) holding the bottom of the grille to the bumper and a screw at the top corners of the bumper in the wheel well. Plus sometimes a couple bolts under the front bumper.

ifIexplode

Of course it does, I did it on my car when the cable broke.

ken9

I didn't think it that hard to get a hood open but anywhere have open fuel tank cover. The salt have eaten up the cable..

NOFX

Make a thread about it and make sure you add the information about what car it's about.

Andrewvtec

If ur facing ur car from the front.... To the left if the Honda emblem stick ur hand between the grill. U will have to find the cable. If it's not loose use a flat head screw driver to hand it loose then pull it towards u and the hood will release.

NotAJDMFanBoy

I believe you can see the cable through the front bumper. I haven't driven mine in like a year though...

Nocturnal

Wish I could help but when this happened to me I had to pry it up and saw off the latch and then install a new hood lol. The cable broke first and then I could not pull it for the life of me. People say if you can pull on the cable really hard it should pop. I couldn't do it.

NOFX

Same for me. We could not pop it by simply pulling on the cable.

Dark Knight 98

I have the same problem on my 98 Teg. I have the front jacked up and sprayed a whole can of WD-40 on the latch assembly. The cable is not broken; but there is about 3/4" of slack when the release lever is not pulled up. I pulled on the cable and still nothing.

grumblemarc

iTrader: (4)

Start sawing.

apexi_rsx

why not cut the cable shielding off by the popper and just try pulling the wire inside with needle nose pliers just cut the outside shielding off or unravel it so u can get the needle nose pliers on the wire to pull and pop it. if the plastic popper isn't already pulled out or broke try holding the cable and pull on the plastic popper. if that don't work you definitely have other post above you could try goodluck

NOFX

For '96-'00 Civic the latch is right behind the grille. If you can manage to get through the grille you can access the latch. 1998-2000 models will have a black plastic shield on the front, so it might be a bit more difficult to access.

This means you'll probably be destroying your grille to get your hood open (can't remove the plastic tabs holding the grille on without popping the hood), but it's a lot better and less destructive than the alternatives. This method will require you replace the grille, but it will not damage the hood, core support, bumper, hood release cable, or the latch. So this also means you can still safely drive the car (but the hood can be opened easily by others!).

Here's the entire latch installed so you can have an idea of how it operates.

Click thumbnails for full size image. Sorry for such large images. I just went out to my car and took the pics and uploaded them straight from my phone.



Notice there are actually two latches in the assembly.

The latch in the front is easily moved, and is normally the one you manually release from the front of the car after you've popped the hood from within the car. As far as I understand, this is basically a safety latch to keep the hood from flying up in the event the hood is popped and the car is driven.

The one in the rear is the main latch. It's much stiffer to rotate manually. This is the latch which is released by the hood cable. The hood cable attaches to the assembly from the passenger side (it loops from the driver area, over the driver wheel well, behind the driver headlight, along the underside of the core support, past the latch onto the passenger side and then turns around and enters the latch assembly from the passenger side). So you will need to pull the latch from the passenger side of the latch assembly after you cut through or otherwise remove the front grille (vice grips help). Then manually release the safety latch mentioned in the previous paragraph.

Oh, and the main latch (rear) rotates clockwise while the safety latch (front) rotates counter-clockwise.

It sucks to do, but that's the easiest way imo. I've tried pulling the cable from the fender area and it just doesn't really work that well, especially if you don't want to damage the cable any further.