The main cable operated hood latch on my 05 Ram is fine but the safety won't release. Any ideas short of a crowbar?
So you can pull the handle in the cab and it will pop the hood, but you cannot release the safety by hand like you would normally? Perhaps it is in a bind...something left under the hood that is pushing on the hood or the latch itself.
That is correct. The hood moves freely, there is no tension on the latch. It probably needs a whiff if lube if I can get to it.
use a piece of brakeline or little pex tubing or something to shoot WD40 etc into the latch device.
Can you reach the safety with a wire hook and pull out of the way so it will release?
Maybe there is something amiss with the release cable still. See if someone holds the handle in the cab while you try to release the safety. Otherwise, we find that either the hydraulic spreader(jaws) or a cut off saw works well when we have to open the hood at a car fire.
:D I was really hoping to not go to that extreme. I went out and after muttering some dire threats I got it open, I couldn't reach the latch by hand because of the intercooler. A little shot of gorilla grease and all is good.
Glad you solved it :)
I had a GMC Safari van that the hood cable wouldn't work one day when I needed to jump start a boat.... Won't go into the fire part :D
The way I solved it was take it to the dealer for an oil change. Didn't say a thing about the hood...they were going to charge too much anyway ;D
That's too funny. :D :D
We have a good Mopar penetrating fluid here with the 4" spray tube. You should have come by,we had doughnuts
;D Thanks for the offer.
They had a recall a few years back on the hood latch on my '07 ram that my dealer had to fix for free. Maybe check if yours was included in the recall also.
I'm glad you got it and didn't have to be as destructive as my suggestions.
I had similar problem on my 04' Ford Expedition, but it was chipmunks that stored about 200lbs of acorns in the sound insulation under the hood, they also filled in the air intake chock full and every other crevasse under the hood.
JJ
I had an '85 suburban that the starter hung one time and wouldn't stop. Of course that was the one time the hood latch decided to act up. I could tell from the smell of melting cables I didn't have long, so grabbed the only thing I could think of, a straight claw framing hammer and chopped through the hood at the latch. Pried open a hole like a can opener, flipped the latch, and was able to disconnect the battery before the whole thing went up in flames. I replaced the melted cables but never did replace the hood. Don't ever remember it sticking after that either.
:D I am really glad I didn't have to do that! The truck is my daily driver, if it was a farm/bush beater I wouldn't have been so picky.