Good day,

My wife has a '97 Civic Hatchback. She was trying to open the hood to fill the windsheild washer fluid last week but the hood does not pop open. With her help I had her pull the lever inside the car while I was trying to lift the hood up to at least un-latch it so we could open it. This did not work at all. I suspect the spring (or rubber) that pop's it up is either broken or missing. By pulling the plastic lever, we can hear the cable and/or latch mechanism move but it seems it is not enough to free the hood enough so I can open it.

Question is, is there any way I can open the hood from the exterior even if it means breaking the mechanism without damaging the hood or other more costly parts in the front of the car?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks in advance.

 

push the hood down and jiggle it while someone pulls the latch

 

actually now that i read that again it sounds like the cable came off the release lever in the car or broke. can you hear the latch moving when you pull it from inside?

 

Thanks for your reply,

We've tried that a number of times. In fact I tried sitting on the hood to apply downward pressure while she was pulling on the lever.

 

Looks like your going to need to jack up the car and try to manually pop it by moving the latch.

 

i sent you a pm.

 

Thanks b16ej... but I do not have full access to the forum so I tried but could not reply to your PM. I did however read through it and I'm wondering if the plastic cable sheild is covering an other metal mesh of some kind or the actual cable that moves the latch?

 

Thanks JDM for your help.

From your experience, do you think I can do that, or have access to the latch from underneath?

Many thanks again.

 

BTW... I just want to thank you all and this forum. I'm quite amazed by the response after just a few minutes after I posted my message. You guys rock.