A friend has a 63 Imperial and the hood release cable has broken. I looked through the grille and can see the secondary latch and spring. That's about all. The valance panel is solid all the way across the front of the car not allowing any sight or access to the latch area. Anyone have a pic of the hood latch from the top with the hood open to give me an idea as to how to attack this issue?
My hood hinges are messed up so I had to hold the hood open with one arm and take pics with the other, so they aren't the best pictures but you can see what's going on here, the cable connects basically just behind the hood ornament to that long arm, and the top of the arm is accessible through that slot. If the paint on the car is shit (or if you're really careful) you can probably weasel a thin but strong metal putty knife in there and just push the lever over to the driver's side and the hood should release. Of course if the mechanism is rusted and that's why the cable broke, it'll take more muscle than that, but it's not the worst.
Can't recall the make, but when everyone else was stumped, I raised the car on the lift and was able get the proper angle. Working vertically from under, I could move the latch. ( bring light )
Thank you to all for the responses especially Squablow ! The pictures are worth a thousand words. I'm gonna make a metal hook to slide between the hood and header panel to pull on the lever to get this thing open. The HAMB is great!
Actually this car is a 1963 and the last of the first generation hemi came in the 1958 models. Imperials in 1963 were never offered with a hemi.
I made a little tool that works similar to a slim jim that opens doors. Made from a piece of heavy sheetmetal I cut and ground a hook on one end. I was able to slip this between the hood and front header and catch the release lever with the hook. Pulled on it and voila the hood released!! Could not have done it without the picture from Squablow! Cable broke right where the set screw locks down on it so we were able to cut 1/2" off the outer cable housing and reattach everything just like factory. Thank you to all and Happy New Year!!
When that happened to my’49 Olds, I moved the pull handle to behind the grill. You can find a good cable maker near any airport. The shorter cable pulled much easier. Good luck.
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