VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND NEWER 1946-1948 1946 hood latch

I have a problem that my pull release cable pulled loose from the hood latch mechanism and I cannot open the hood. I peered thru the small hole near the rear of the lower baffle in front of the radiator & can see the bottom of the bottom of the lock plate and the V notch in the mechanism. This notch is not on the side with the latch bolt. If I could look from the top this narrow notch would be on the left side of lock plate. I tried using a long screwdriver in that long narrow V notch to see if it would move and release the latch bolt without any success. Do I have to remove this lower baffle to get to whatever I need to? It appears I will have to remove front bumper to slide out the front splash guard and baffle to get more access there.
Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated.
Jimmie Price

Had that happen on my 48. On the 47-48 models you could get a long thin screwdriver between the bottom of the hood and the top of the grill and push the release. Not sure if there's enough space there on the 46. Also I've got some photos of a hood release tool someone made up but since photobucket now holds them for ransom, I can no longer post them until I get another hosting site. If you send me your email address in a PM or by email, I'll send them to you via email.

Good Luck!!

thanks. PM sent with email address. Jimmie

Pictures are on the way!!

Good Luck

Once you get it opened, unbolt the latch plate from the baffle.
Cut an opening in the baffle under the latch mechanism area so you can then get at it from under the top grill bar with a long screwdriver if it happens again. The latch plate covers the hole so it won't be seen when the hood is open.

dick

After you get it open, you can drill a 1/16" hole in the latch, attach about 3' of wire to it, and feed it out into the passenger side wheel well. This trick has saved me a couple of times (not Chevy's), when you pull on the knob inside and you think "OOps-That's not the right sound!"

I hate this topic. It bothers me so much that TODAY I spent a whole half hour setting my 41 latch up so I can release it under my radiator support if the latch cable fails.

I had my hood release fail about 7 years ago and I had to remove the passenger tire, the inner fender for the headlight, and with my longest screwdriver reach up blindly and pry on the latch. Luckily, it popped open. Now I do not even install the front grill without testing the latch cable to see if it is easily releasing my hood. PM me with your email address and I will send you pictures.

Thanks, Mike

Hi. I got it opened last week. I used a 10" pegboard hook and bent it in a 1" 90 degree on the end and came back about 1.5" and bent a 3" long arc offset. Slid in in between hood and grille and rotated it to where the hook pointed down and pushed and it opened.
I used the pegboard hook because it is soft enough to bend by hand in a vice but hard enough to not bent when pushing to release latch.
Found that if I sit on ground I could use my led pocket flashlight and shine between hood & grill and see the small opening in latch plate the hook must go in. Worked like a charm.
Now I will just keep it in my took kit in trunk.
I will post a photo if I can figure out how to do it here. Help says I need to click on file manager after I click on reply and I cannot find file manager to do this. I guess no photo.
Thanks everyone.
Jimmie

Good job!!!

Amazing, sound just like what I came up with this weekend. I made mine out of the wire handle from a 5 gallon bucket. Very simple and works great.

So the challenge is on for hood latch backup releases. The 41 latch is not easily accessible through the grill or between the hood and latch plate so my simple genius method is illustrated on my Google Group.

https://goo.gl/photos/eCyAiWVUx8mezxjz9

Best Wishes,
Mike