To those who have replaced thier hood release cable...

[max5roadster]

Well, I have new hood release cable coming from Pelican on Monday and have started pulling off stuff to install. according to the bentley manual, I need to remove the bumper (check), the grills (check) and condenser fan (not yet but soon). My question is how do I access where it exits the firewall? It doesnt look like I need to pull the fender, as it seems to be in between the welded area in the strut area... so, how do i snake it through here? Can I just pull the old one out from the front and force the new one through from the footwell? Maybe tape them together and pull as one unit? I don't have the car raised, so maybe it is visable from below. Any help anyone could offer would be greatly appreciated.

[motorwerks]

I taped my new one to the old one, and pulled it through. It kept getting stuck at first, so I greased the hell out of it, and it went through.

[max5roadster]

thanks!

[max5roadster]

Well I got it done and I must say that it really is a pain in the ass. Here's a quick run down in case anyone else wants to try it:

Remover bumper, remove grill inserts, remove aux cooling fan, remover latches, disconnect main cable, pull lower kick panel, remove pull mechansim, and remover speaker/speaker dampening. Now at this point one could twist-tie the old and new cable and grease the new one HEAVILY with with lithium grease and pull like hell to get it through - If you are lucky! I'm not lucky... My connection broke, so if that happens to you, you have to remove the following additional parts: drivers side fender, inner fender liner, (front half of side skirts if you have them, too) and drivers side hood hinge (prop hood with supporting poles). Now you have to work a hanger through the only hole you can see on the firewall side of a 4 inch gap in the uni-body front section just forward of the window pillar buldge. This will make sense when you see it. Now the tricky part. You have three openings where the original cable could have went through to feed in past the strut tower. This is sealed so you have to work it and guess. I chose the middle hole. You cant see these openings, I used a socket extension and poked around till I could find them. I fed the cable through and it was technically short by about 6 inches or so if I wanted to snap it back into the cable clips that ride under the radiator core support. I let it be as it functions just fine where it is, just not as tucked away as the stock location. This means the proper opening to use should be the one closest to the front of the car (or I got the wrong cable). Below is a very basic illustration of where it goes. The black dotted section is the sealed part I referenced. The blue x's mark the holes entering this section, and the red is the cable path I chose. I hope this helps some of you. If you are not mech' inclined then it may be worth the 900 or so to take and have the dealer do as they will be working for their money on this project.

[olcarluvr]

That is a pain! A couple of questions that can maybe help others from having to ever do this repair:

What led to the replacement? Accident, old age, poor design, out of adjustment, lack of lubrication????? A cable that is hardly ever used should last forever, it would seem. Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks for the heads up.

Larry

[max5roadster]

bought the car used and the cable was sticking already. It required pliers pulling on the cable to pop the hood. I could see were the cable was untwisting and frayed at this end from the previous owner using this method. I also found the 1st latch mechanism on the drivers side had a cracked piece of plasitc were the cable fits in, allowing flexing. I did not replace that yet, but used zip ties to keep it from splitting more and flexing. I think if I epoxy it lightly, it will last just fine.

[BMR_LVR]

If you are not mech' inclined then it may be worth the 900 or so to take and have the dealer do as they will be working for their money on this project.[/QUOTE]

Man, what a PITA. Cudos to you for getting it done. I would probably have just taken it to my trusted indy mech, but ........ Dang !!!! $900 for this job? :yikes::yikes::yikes:

Is that what was quoted to you? Obviously 99% labor charge.

[max5roadster]

It was the average quote from web researching. The part was 34 bucks.

[motorwerks]

wow, you took alot of parts off to do that. I removed the kick panel, the grill inserts, and the plastic molding in the engine bay that covers the latch area. I bent up the metal around the latch so I could access the cable to remove it from the latch mech. I then got inside of the car, and duct taped one cable to the other, greased the new one liberally, and proceeded to work it through. I had to back it off a few times before finding the sweet spot, but it made it.
I then attached the new cable, pushed the metal back into place, and reassembled. It took about 1/2 hour total.

I think you may have screwed up by using zip ties. They were probably what was hanging up on you.

[max5roadster]

Yeah.. would a been easy had the damn thing held together... Bending the radiator core support was not my cup o' tea though. easy nuff to remove latches with aux fan removed.