Hello folks, silly question ahead. I have 71 cutlass S, removed hood and then reinstalled, now having problems getting it to latch. The hood comes all the way down but not enough to activate the latch, need about another 1/4 of an inch. Am I missing something simple. I am thinking about a little reformation in the area of the center core plate. Any ideas would be great. Thanks

 

Is the hood aligned in the same position it was before? Di you adjust the hood bumper stops? Pictures?

 

It is lined up pretty close to where it was. No I did not mess with bumpers thinking that the hood does go all the way down just won't activate the latch. I am wondering if the core support got tweaked downwards with me and others constantly leaning on it during various jobs being performed ,Just a thought.

 

Did you actually check the latch itself to determine if it is in the latched or unlatched position??? As you said with all the leaning on the core support, maybe the latch actually got moved to the closed position preventing the hood from going all the way down... Try pulling the hood release, if you haven't already, and see if anything changes...

 

Everything is good there, checked operation of latch mechanism, locked and unlocked. The hood doesn't need to come down any farther, its like the latch needs to come up to meet the hood that last little bit so the mechanism clicks to lock the hood down. I know that it shouldn't be this hard. I will mess around with tomorrow after a good day of fishing. Thanks for all the great input. Happy Labor Day weekend to all.

 

There are adjustments you can make to the mechanism.

 

If the hood latched before and NOTHING was changed except the hood was removed, the latch does NOT need to be adjusted. You still don't have the hood adjusted properly. Did you change the settings on the hood bumpers at all?

 

Will recheck everything again and make adjustments if needed to hood. Thanks again guys.

 

Did you remove the hood hinges from the fenders, or just pull the hood from the hinges/springs? Did the hood look level with the top of the fenders, both in the back and in the front? If your still not getting it to latch can you post some pictures for us? John

 

I just removed the hood from the hinges. The hood does sit a little bit higher on the drivers side. I did put a level across core support where the latch is and the drivers side is lower making me think some tweaking might be needed in that area. I appreciate all the great support and information, thanks again.

 

Did you reinstall the thick spacers at the rear of the hinge, between the hinge and the hood? Sometimes these fall out during hood removal.

 

Finally got it. Even though I had never adjusted the hood bumpers I removed the drivers side one and the hood latched. Thanks for all the great suggestions guys. Have a great weekend.