How do you open the hood on your 95 GMC Jimmy when the hood latch cable is broken?

Answer 1

There are at least a couple ways of getting the hood open. For either method you should look at another GM latch for reference. The latch on my "88" Chevy van is the same thing. I used that for my reference. If you look at the latch you will see two 8mm bolts facing forward and slightly down. If you can get enough of a gap between the hood and grill open enough to see these bolts, you may be able to get them out with a 13mm socket which will allow the hood with the latch to be raised as much as the cable will allow. If this is enough to reach the latch, you should be able open it. This is how I got mine open. Once you get to the latch, you find the lever at the bottom that the cable is hooked to. You move it to the right as the cable would pull it. This releases the primary part of the latch. Now the lever has to back to the left to finish the release. This is where my problem was. The latch was so stiff the spring to push the lever to the left could not do the job. I had to push the lever back with a screwdriver to get it to release. I thought my cable was bad but it was OK. Once I got the latch out it took almost a half hour to get the latch moving freely enough to allow the spring to push the lever back.

If you cannot get the bolts out of the latch, get a piece of stiff rod,(I used 3/16 dia) bend a tight 90 at the end and practice on the reference latch to get the feel of releasing the latch and then try it.

Good Luck

I would assume the '92 GMC S-15 is the same. The grill comes off quite easily even with the hood closed. There are 4 small Torx screws across the top barely accessible just under the lip of the hood. Additionally there are 4 in the grill slats themselves. Be careful; they are easy to drop into wherever lost screws go. When the grill is loose, it can be removed by deflecting the top down to fit it out under the hood lip. It has to bend some but not near breaking. When the top of the grill is out, it simply lifts off two posts at the bottom corners. Be careful of the wires to the marker lights; just remove the sockets and let them hang.

Once the grill is out, you can see and access the release and release the latch. This might be possible without removing the grill but must be done blind from the bottom. The trick is to push a super heavy spring like loop to the right. This loop is the foremost part of the latch mechanism and is less than 1/4" in diameter. The cable points right at it. Imagine continuing to the left (passenger US) beyond where the cable disappears into the latch mechanism in the direction the cable is going when it goes into the latch mechanism. It would come out right in the front and that is where the tight loop in the strong spring that is the hood latch is. Push that loop right (toward driver). If you try it blind; slide a screwdriver from left to right across the front of the mechanism a little higher than the cable which you can see. A little press and release down on the hood will help. The hood will release, fix the cable or jury rig a release wire and you're done.

In my case the cable had simply slipped out of the loop and the latch moved freely. It was easy to get back in and then I closed the loop down a little with vice-grips so the cable couldn't slip out again. Don't forget the lights on reassembly. Incidentally both of mine were burnt out.