[V8] Broken hood release

[Buchholz, Steven]

... in my younger days a friend of mine showed me a trick to get into mid-60's Dodge Darts using a pocket knife on the wing vent ... I actually used that knowledge once to help a lady who had locked her keys in her car at a grocery store ... 3 minutes, 30 seconds, nothing ... we're talking 5 seconds tops!

Like they always say, if someone really wants to get into your car they're going to ... and chances are they're not going to do any web searches to look for any tricks beforehand ... nor are they going to worry about how the car looks afterward.  What are they going after under the hood anyway?

I know I'd certainly appreciate knowing how to do this, I've had to open the hood from underneath once ... fortunately on a car that had the belly pan removed ... 

Steve B
San José, CA (USA)
> 
> I recently had the pleasure of dealing with a broken hood release, the cable
> end managed to come off the passenger side catch.  I thought about putting
> together a quick writeup for this, as I found a quick way around it.  But
> then I realised, maybe we wouldn't want a how to on the internet showing how
> to get into the hood of our car in less than 5 minutes (it really was that
> easy, after about 2 hours of poking around and thinking about it.)
> 
> But I happen to have a spare radiator support and the spring clip to use to
> take pictures of if you all think we do need a write-up.  The spare support
> sure was handy in trying to visualize the problem from the outside, I was
> able to look at the latch that I couldn't see, outside of the car.
> 
> To get an idea of how easy this method was, a wire coathanger, and a
> leatherman or similar is all you need.  I used a flashlight as well because
> it was dark out, and was still able to open it in less than 5 minutes.  With
> practice, probably under 30 seconds, hence my hesitation for publishing.