TheSamba.com :: View topic - In desperate need of help with hood alignment issues...

Thu Aug 21, 2008 2:23 pm

So I made a terrible mistake this morning. I took the car for a spin around the block and didn't attach the latch to the hood... hit about 25mph and the hood flew open... It didn't bend the hood (or at least it's not noticeable if it happened) or anything catastrophic... I pulled over and shut it, drove back home slowly...

However, it doesn't open now. I have removed the bolts and shifted the hood around several times. Here are the pictures of what it looks like:

Any suggestions? What exactly is wrong? I've looked at the hinges and they seem to hang lower than before. I've removed the springs and there is no rubber seal around the hood. Is that part of my problem? Any help will be very appreciated... thanks! :?

Thu Aug 21, 2008 2:26 pm

Did you look to see if you possibly stretched the hood release cable and there's too much slack in it to release the latch?

Thu Aug 21, 2008 2:30 pm

It looks like you may have bent the arms or mounts for the hood arms.

Thu Aug 21, 2008 2:48 pm

Davedough wrote: Did you look to see if you possibly stretched the hood release cable and there's too much slack in it to release the latch?

That's the thing... the hatch isn't even installed, that's why this happened. The hood is only sitting on the hinges, no springs, no rubber, no latch... just the 4 bolts to the hinges.

Thu Aug 21, 2008 2:57 pm

Loosen the 4 bolts to the hinges. There is a lot of adjustment there.
Front bolts need to go down, rear bolts need to come up.

Thu Aug 21, 2008 3:05 pm

Russ Wolfe wrote: Loosen the 4 bolts to the hinges. There is a lot of adjustment there.
Front bolts need to go down, rear bolts need to come up.

You never fail to deliver Russ. I owe you a beer man... I owe a lot of beers to the samba members actually LOL.

I was thinking about it as I was looking at the pictures... it just makes sense, the hood is tilting back. I spent the last 2 hours f*cking around with it until I got extremely irritated and started making stupid mistakes which lead to a banged up finger.

I walked away, grabbed a coke, jumped on here... tried it again with you method.. and what do you know! The hood opens and closes like it's new! It actually fits better now than it did before! Thanks!!!