LUVTruck.com

Well, I had my hood latch cable break the other day when I went to check the oil. Aside from some initial panic, I decided to figure out how to disassemble the hood to get at the latch. It only took about an hour to get the hood off and the latch decommissioned and the hood back on. For those who have this problem, here's pretty much what I did. First I got out all my 12mm wrenches and sat down in front of the truck and tried to remove the 4 bolts that hold the hood hinges in front of the radiator. There wasn't a lot of room to get my hand up in there but with a short 12mm open end wrench I turned and turned and finally the two rear most bolts came loose. That gave a little more room to get at the front bolts and as they came loose, I wedged a couple of spacers between the hood and the front grille to give more turn room. So finally the 4 front bolts came loose and I raised the hood front about 4" above the radiator [not too much as you will bent the hood at the center rear latch.] The front of the hood is still being held by the hood brace on the drivers side. Then, after looking underneath the hood at the latch and after looking at my parts 73 LUV. I figured out how to release the latch. This part is more tricky and I hope I can describe it well. On the latch when viewed from above the radiator underneath the hood with a flashlight, there is a centered 'button' looking pivot point that the latch piece revolves around. There is also a short lever that protrudes diagonally down towards the rear of the exhaust manifold. You can see the cable housing passing by horizontally above this 'lever'. The low end of the diagonal lever is the one you want to push towards the passenger side of the truck. There are other 'levers' attached to the latch and one of them is the spring loaded riser that helps the hood 'bounce up' when the release lever in the cab is pulled. It is longer and more prominent-----don't push that one. You'll have use a 4' piece of 1/2" pipe or conduit to be able to solidly grip the low part of the diagonal piece. I tried with a long screwdriver but couldn't get the latch to release the hood....it was held too tight because the hood is raised 4" or so above the radiator. So I used the pipe and just whacked it with a hammer and the hood jumped up like normal. Then I removed the hood and brace from the body. I could see the cable was broken about 1/2" from the latch. Next I removed all the springs and safety parts of the latch to be sure the hood, when replaced, doesn't re attach itself. That would be a mess. Then I reattached the hood to the truck and all is well....Except I couldn't purchase a new hood cable for the LUV. Had to end up making one by using the old housing, some aircraft cable [1/16"] and drilling out some .190 thousands gas welding rod for the two ends. I drilled with a 1/16" bit and used the dremel cutoff wheel to size the welding rod. I had tried to use the old cable ends but I couldn't drill through them. So I made my own. Once the holes were drilled through the rod , I dremeled a cut longitudinally along the rod so it would hold some of the weld. Push the cable through the hole about 1/16" and clamp the cable to your vise with the rod laying on top of the vise and the cable clamped below. Let about 1/16" of cable protrude through the hole. Then use a wire feed welder[I used a $100 buzz box] to just put a small spot of weld along the grove and the wire end. Then use the Dremel again to round off the excess weld. This sounds complicated but it was easy and the results were great. Don't forget to 30 weight lube the inside of the old cable housing and new cable. Hope this works for you guys........It did for me.