All the wires seem attached so I moved on for now, may look into a switch that possibly blew in the crash.

Anyone ever messed with a hood latch before? I never disconnected the hood release cable but it doesn’t seem to be taught enough to pull the release back, but even worse it seems that the hood isn’t even locking on (which may be a good thing anyway as if the hood release isn’t working you probably don’t want that happening.) the secondary tab is catching but not the main. Not quite sure how to fix it right now.

I did manage to get the bumper hooked up
as well as the fog lamps so hey, small victories.

then I just need to find the cost and process to get a vehicle retitled out of salvage in PA.

 

Make sure things are lining up. I'd go ahead and get a new latch from the JY as it probably got damaged.

Hey, when it's all fixed and you get bored you can do my hood latch mod.... https://dodgeforum.com/forum/2nd-gen...elocation.html

 

Thanks guys. Appreciate it. It’s a little frustrating to be so close and have these little issues but that is cars. I did take some pictures and try some PB blaster after watching a couple help videos. The main catch just seems half closed and to not be budging - I’m not sure if that was due to an impact or just rust. I do recall the hood was difficult to open after the accident so it is very possible that this is impact damage just tough to see. Not sure if you can tell by the pictures.




Additionally, I don’t see the cable put any tension on the spring when I pull on the hood release latch even with the latch connected to the truck. And I can’t pull the cable to move the hood release latch spring myself either (but it moves freely inside) That seems to tell me I may have also routed the cable incorrectly when I mounted the support bar back? I need to figure out or look at another dodge to say. If I go back to the pull yard that will be easy to do. I’ll have to make sure I don’t want to grab the cable or anything else while I am down there so it’s the last trip for this one - 2 hours round trip!

Once I get this one figured out I'll go back to the headlight and disassemble it and put a meter on it. Apparently 3 wires in there, one for ground, one high, one low. I'll see if low wire is getting same 12v as high when on and go from there.

 

PB Blaster will break things loose, and clean them up as well, but, if you don't put some lube on it, it'll freeze up again fairly quickly. I use the spray white lithium grease. Works pretty good.

 

right on. It’s really looking like this thing is just messed up because even when I move the springs I don’t see a way where the top latch will open up to freely allow the hood to drop in all the way and lock. it doesn’t help I don’t know how it’s supposed to look or operate - I’m thinking I will have to drive the hour to the salvage yard tomorrow and pull another one just so I can see how it looks at minimum and then decide if this one is busted up.

 

Big spring is on the part of the latch that rotates, that's so your hood pops up when the latch is released. Little spring is on the lock lever. There is a notch in the rotating part, and a 'finger' in the lock lever, that locks the latch in place when the hood is fully closed. Pulling the hood release pulls the lock lever out of the way, so the big spring can rotate the part that rotates...... and push the hood up to the secondary latch. It's actually really simple the way it works.

 

Some years back, a flooring outlet damaged my tailgate trying to load a pallet of floor tiles in the truck. Guy didn't know how to operate a fork lift and had the blades at the wrong angle, which stressed the hell out of my tailgate. Long story short, it wouldn't latch fully and I messed with those latches for a long time because they seemed fine to the naked eye. Got a pair from the junkyard for a few bucks and problem solved.

 

Thanks for sticking with me guys! I was about to head to the junkyard today and just can't bring myself to do it until I fully understand what the heck is wrong with this latch. I think understanding what it's supposed to do will help me understand if I need a new latch from the pull yard or if this one is working properly and the problem is elsewhere.

I think the big brain block I have is that the small spring, which I have drawn a yellow line on, in the photo below, which is attached to the hood release cable, moves freely (the piece i drew an orange line on) but does not seem to have any affect or influence on the big spring which I drew a red line on. So if the hood release indeed did something to move what I assume is the main latch, which I drew blue on (under independent control of the BIG spring, that latch does seem to move inward or down into the mechanism, not outward, which I am unsure is correct).



I think I'm a little lost on what moves that big spring, and in turn I assume, the main hood lock, since the little spring doesn't seem to cause the big to move at all. If I can somehow understand that, I'll know if this latch is broken.

 

The latch (blue line item) moves down into the rest of the mechanism to both lock the hood in place, and prevent the hood-side latch from escaping. (in the event of a collision....) The red line item is the spring for latch. Use a screwdriver, or something similar, to push the latch down into the rest of it, and it should click into place, and stay there. You should also notice the orange-line item move a bit when the latch locks into place.

To release, the cable pulls the orange-line feller, to release the latch. (blue line feller) and it SNAPS open, pushing the hood up a bit. (so you can get your fingers around it, and find the secondary release. )

 

You’re awesome. This advice did the trick! Got it locked tight and the hood release works. All that’s left is to disassemble that headlight and get a meter on the low beam wire to determine if it’s getting power then diagnose from there. Once that headlight is fixed I believe we are at 100 percent!!! Wow.