Bonnet cable, sorted. Greasing mech?

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Have read a few threads and through the jammed bonnet Wiki but struggling getting my bonnet open.

Cable has snapped at the handle and has gone into the sleeve so can't get at it with pliers, have cut about 1" off the housing to try and find the cable but he's crawled right up into his hole. :mad2:

Managed to get the grill off at the bottom and can get a hold of the cable in the housing from there. pulled that and the Pass side bonnet popped. Struggling to get the Drivers side though.

Can see the bare cable from underneath the car but can't get up to it with my arms so tried a coathanger bent with a hook on the end but all i got was a punch in the face and the pin isn't releasing at all. Tried having someone push down/pull the drivers side when I'm pulling the cable with the coathanger but its not budging.

 

Any Ideas for me? been tugging the cable in the housing under the grill but the drivers side doesn't want to pop. If I were to pull the housing from the drivers footwell will it eventually come off and leave me with just the cable I can pull with pliers?

 

Sorry for another thread about this, seen there was quite a few already..

[DanVW 0]

How much of the 'inner' cable came away with the broken cable? your best bet if it snapped off at the handle end inside the car is to strip away the outer sleeve till you can get to the inner cable, get a set of mole grips on it and push the outer sleeve until it pops open.

 

Hope this helps

 

Dan

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I was stripping it down but I did get at the grill and popped the NS one. Have a feeling when I was tugging at it and the inner from underneath its pulled the inner right up the housing at the lever. Wasn't quite sure how the release worked so I think I've made it even harder for myself from loosing the inner up there! From what I've seen from how the release works on the drivers side does the housing pull/push something to allow the pin to release?

 

Whats the score with manually releasing the pin? Its a VR so can't get my arm up to the pin, does anyone have any pictures on what I should be trying to move to release the drivers side?

[Jim Bowen 1]

this is how i got mine open

 

UPDATE:

 

chilled out and bit and had a think, but with the aircon thingy at bottom of engine there's no way to get to the latch from underneath.

 

i could squeeze my very thin hands through the gap between headlight and radiator :!:! and touch the latch but that was all then it stuck me :lol:

 

dug this out, its from the door pull mech..

 

put it in gap, looped over latch and pulled and it opened :D

 

sacrificied my badgeless grill but am sure i can get another one

[Jim Bowen 1]

hopefully the pics explain what i did, yoour trying to hook onto the metal loop that the cable passes through

[Rinse 0]

Ah ace, this sounds exactly what I'm looking for! Just gotta find something similar to what you've used. Worst comes to worse I'll nick it out of my passenger door.

Thanks! Hopefully I can get at it without taking my entire grill off. One of the tabs have broken already, don't want to break both :s.

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GOT IT! (3 hrs later.....) Thanks so much for those pics 3corsameal! Helped heaps!

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Ahahaha. Fitting the new cable, the metal trumpet's bolt shears off! Gotta love having a Corrado again! Another few days with one sitting on my drive with no grill/lights. :lol:

Cheers again for the help.

[DanVW 0]

same happened to me when i replaced mine mate :-( good work on getting it open though! 8)

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Whilst we're on the subject, what exactly do i need to grease to get the bonnet opening smoothly? Not sure what i need to grease on the spring parts under the slam pannel, I just greased up the loops and bunged in heaps of grease in the hole. Also the pins on the bonnet I'm assuming will need just covered in grease?

[Jim Bowen 1]

thats all i greased up too, i also fitted the trumpet bit the wrong way round (compared to diagram i was shown), seemed to work better and not catch on anything.

[Wullie 1]

Make sure the safety catch is free to move as well. The spring seems to collect dirt and partially seize up.