I have a '96 2.0L with automatic tranny. However, that all seems irrelevant. Recently, I went out to the car and tried to pop the hood...nothing. I heaved on the handle enough that it came away from the mounting bracket on the inside of the footwell. I noticed that the cable and the hose it is in runs through a small white plastic grommet and this in turn fits into a "C" shaped collar that is part of the mounting bracket. This white grommet would pop forward and out of the 'C" collar whenever you pulled hard enough on the handle.
My solution, I just put a couple of screws in front of the white grommet so that it couldn't move forward and therefore not pop out of the "C" collar. So, I thought I'd fixed it because now you could exert tension on the cable. No luck. I still can't pop the hood.
I can yank on that latch handle as hard as I want and you can feel the tension increase near the top of the pull. However, the hood stays locked down. I tried going in from underneath, nope. You just end up underneath the bumper cover. I thought about cutting away the little mesh grill to get at the acutal hood latch but am hesitant.
Any ideas?
Mark.
