Today the driver's side solenoid decided not to work when I pushed the button. No worries I thought, I'll just pull the emergency cable. It will not budge. Does anyone have a suggestion of how to procced in getting this thing to open? Once open, what needs to be fixed? Greg
My advice is pull harder. When I first got my car I had no solenoid action either, so I was pulling on the cables a lot. It takes a hard pull.
Serves you right for having "hi-tech" 400i's - us old school 400 owners don't fall foul of the dreaded solenoid curse. I pity you....
That's us Brits all over - full of compassion for the poor, lost souls that are doomed to roam the earth in their 400i's in search of a reliable way to open their hood. The only thing that would be worse was if they couldn't open the truck. Oh, wait a minute.....
Not calling names, but hopefully all the solution needs is a big jerk . ...is your battery low ? If the cables were (either) to have broken, I'd suggest tying the battery charger in thru the fuse panel.... On my 308, I prepared holes thru the fiberglass trunk to unscrew the hood pins if I'd ever need a backup method....but there is no real chance of doing this on a 400, and I've never looked to see about adding a backup pull wire either...Lee
Greg, A little bit of gentle downwards pressure over the lock whilst someone else is pulling the emergency wire should do it. Don't worry about those Brits - us Aussies will look after you guys!
Thanks for the suggestion Tassie. Unfortunately it didn't work. I can hear the solinoid clicking just as loudly as the passenger side. I've tried pulling on the loop using a plyers to no avail. Tomorrow I'll put the car up on the lift to see if I can get at the latch from below but I think it is pretty crowded up there. Greg
No luck yet and thanks for asking. As we say in our business: "It's made of metal so we ought to be able to outsmart it". It's just very frustrating when the metal has the upper hand. At such times I feel dumber than a rock. Greg
Greg There is only one solenoid. It actuates a lever that pulls cables to both sides of car. So if one side opened, the solenoid is not the problem. Your problem lies with the latch itself. There are two separate cables to each latch. One from solenoid and the emergency cable. I often wondered what does one do to get it open in this scenario. I came close to the same frustration a few years ago, but with the proper grip on the cable I got it open. Good luck. Ken
Tomorrow I am going to tackle this issue again. In all previous efforts the passenger side has popped up but not the driver's side. Then I've tried pulling the emergency manual cable. This time I am going to try the emergency cable first in hopes the hood being tweaked has something to do with the latch seizure . I can see the cable is a stainless braded wire swagged into a loop for pulling. How hard can I pull before the cable fails? Can a mere mortal pull so hard? Greg
When this happened to me one side opened only and I couldn't open the other side with the emergency cable either. What worked was applying downwards pressure on the bonnet so there was less pressure on the catch and then both the electric and the emergency wires worked! WD40 was the immediate fix followed by some graphite grease applied at appropriate places. No problem since. Sticking side was also LH (US driver's) side. Regards
I think Tassie is on to a solution. Yes, close the opposite side and push down on the side that does not work. I have hope for that working. Ken
Hi Ken, I had intended to wait until tomorrow to post this information but, since you sent the above I'll give everyone the first step on the road to success. I tried pulling that emergency cable with an antique ice hook I happen to have. No luck. Then I tried the cable on the passender side. It moves only about an eighth inch for release and requires only a light pull by my index finger. Being dumber than a rock I thought "Why not reverse Tassie's advice". So I went to the problem side, grasped the hood as close to the offending latch as possible and gave a sharp upward pull. VOILA! It opened easily. Thinking now about this nightmare I believe the soleniod was doing its job of unlocking the latch all along. That is why the cable feels solid and inoperative: it couldn't redo the done job. With the hood (bonnet) up I can see the latch twitch when I push the release button and can pop the latch open with my index finger following the twitch. Tomorrow I plan to annoint the latch with gasoline, blow out whatever is in it (it feels like grit), make the thing free up and lubricate it. Both right and left latches will get the treatment. I'll report the results. Greg
I really like lacquer thinner for this sort of thing. Cuts grease just as well as gasoline or paint thinner, but it doesn't stink and it evaporates quickly, leaving no residue. I suppose it will dissolve lacquer and maybe some other kinds of paint, so that's something to think about. But I've used it on painted items too. Anyway, congratulations on getting the hood open. Forza!
Now why didn't I think of that? The latch was sticking not the operating mechanism. Opposite problem to mine. Well done.
Hi, I'll try to keep this short. My latch problem had nothing to do with grit and grease. There are adjustments for both the solenoid cable length and the emergency cable length. These are both on the bottom side of the latch so it has to come off its mount to get at the adjustment points. I shortened them both up by about 1/16th inch. There is also a copper colored clamp into which the solenoid cable fits. This is on the rear bolt and hangs below the latch. It seems to be an additional but minor adjustment point. All of this helped but the latch still had a bind that wouldn't let it move freely. The problem on mine was that clamp outfit had no compensating spacer on the front bolt between the latch and the mounting surface. The clamp is .070 thick so I put a .070 flat washer in the front and that fixed it. Evidently the latch housing was being twisted and bound up over time because of corrosion. Both sides now snap open with authority and the emergency cable opens the latch with almost no effort pulling. I even screwed up my courage and closed the hood. Bang,it popped righ up when I pushed the button! As I wouldn't wish this problem on anyone I'd suggest everyone have a look at their car. Maybe my spacer was lost or maybe the factory never installed them in any car. Greg
I took my own advice and checked the passenger side of my car. No shims are there so I assume I've stumbled onto a way to overcome latch sticking because of corrosion. Greg
Several years back, my 1980 Ser. 1 hood cable frayed and snapped. Series 1 does not have solenoids, thank goodness. However, after completely replacing the cable and resueging them at the left and right locks, I added an additional short emergency cable with a small finger loop in it to each lock that tucks in an hides neatly in the hood/body crevise. I painted the cable to match the car, and it works perfectly, and gives me piece of mind. I hope this is of some value. Jq.
