Bouncing Hood (1 Viewer)

[M-80]

The hood on my '94 bounces up and down going down the highway. I've adjusted the latch bracket down as far as it would go and the hood still has about an inch of travel. It's a little unnerveing to see it bouncing at 70 MPH. Any thoughts?

Thanks
Marde

 

[Romer]

That definitly isn't right. Is this something that just developed? Was any work done there? Did you look in the latch to make sure nothing else is stuck in there?

I just went out and looked at mine. This sounds like when you pull the release in the vehicle, and you haven't yet reached under the hood to release the latch.

Did you try pushing down? Try using a screw driver to act like its the hodd closing and see what it does. Sounds to me like an issue with the lock mechanism, the one you release from inside the car. With the hood up, get someone to pull the in car release and see if you can see anything. Maybe its stuck open either via the cable or the mechanism itself.

 

[Beowulf]

Any thoughts?

This is not a common problem and something is not adjusted properly. You'll need to look at the mechanism and post up some pics if you can't figure it out. Something's wrong.

-B-

 

[sjcruiser]

Sounds like your hood is only held down by the safety latch. You mentioned that you have moved the lock mechanism all the way down so that might be the opposite way to address the issue - the hood striker may never reach the main lock; also check the release cable as Romer suggested.

 

[turbocruiser]

As everyone has already added, I think something is seriously wrong, I do not know how much upforce that safety can handle but at some point all the surface area under the hood and all the force from winds at speeds is gonna spring that thing loose and slam the hood right into your windshield! I would fix this yesterday, in fact, if you are any at all in doubt about whatever the fix is, just buy a whole new assembly from Dan and replace the thing ... its not worth the potential damage. I think sj was on to something; I think you are taking the primary latch out of reach and you need to adjust it UP to get it to connect to the U shaped part on the hood. Also if that part of the hood is wallered out or worn out, it wont have the proper shape to stay in place. My hood sprang from latched to safety latched at about 90 MPH, I about crapped my pants and pulled over right away to resecure the hood and check my shorts!!! In this particular case, I had simply shut the hood too softly and it never really latched right. HTH

 

[Junk]

you'll get used to it as mine has been that way for almost 2 years now. Zebrabeefj40 was going to mess himself the first ride in it I think . Someday I'll get around to fixing it. :whoops:

 

[turbocruiser]

you'll get used to it as mine has been that way for almost 2 years now. Zebrabeefj40 was going to mess himself the first ride in it I think . Someday I'll get around to fixing it. :whoops:

Sheesh Junk, sounds somewhat risky, is this your version of extreme sports or are you still trying to slackline three inches off the ground??? Remember the bigger you are... OOO, OUCH, Luv ya man. Seriously, get that thing fixed man, we want you around a lot lot lot longer!

 

[informationjunky]

any chance you have one of those polycarbonate hood protectors?

 

[MoJ]

Wild guess - Are the two rubber bump stops for the hood properly adjusted relative to the adjustments you've made to the latch mechanism? (located at the front of the engine bay and screw in/out to adjust).

 

[ace10]

i'd check the release cable. does it move freely and are there any pinches?

 

[Scott_sFZJ80]

This is an easy fix, I had the same issue a few years ago with the hood bouncing at around 70mph and MoJ is right on the money. Just adjust the two rubber bump stops by loosening the lock nut and unscrew the bump to raise it up and then retighten the lock nut. I didn’t even adjust the lock mechanism and the bouncing never returned. I’m guessing that one way to really tell that the bump stops are to low would be that the hood won’t pop up on demand when you pull on the release. The reason why is mention that is mine didn’t pop up prior to adjusting it and then it did, so I would say that there is a direct relationship with that symptom. Hope this helps…

 

[trouser_trout]

I had the same issue with my 97. I adjusted the rubber stops and took off my plastic bug guard. Problem solved.

 

[M-80]

Thanks for the help. I do not have a bug deflector, so we can rule that out. I took off the grill. There was a bolt missing from the center support bracket. I originally thought there were only the two outside bolts to the crossmember. I put a bolt in. This solved a lot of the problem. It still bounces up on the sides but not in the middle. If I adjust the hood stops, won't it change the correlation with the fenders? Right now the hood is flush with the fenders.

 

[Scott_sFZJ80]

I thought the same thing regarding the hood flush with fenders, I even held off a while because of it. But when a friend of mine commented about the bouncing I said that the flush with the fenders was the lesser of two evils so I adjusted it. I’m glad that I did because as it turned out I can’t even tell the difference after the bump stop adjustment, the hood still appears to be flush with the fenders. Remember, if you don’t like it just adjust it back, does you hood pop up when the release is pulled?

 

[PHAEDRUS]

m-80,
the bump stops will not effect the fender correlation much if at all. aadjust those things out and see what it looks like. 5 minute job at best.
Dave

 

[Junk]

turbo - not 3", but thanks Made some coin doing that this summer. Getting much better at it though.

Yeah, probably the rubber stops, but it's good enough for now. For a few weeks about 2 years ago when I was driving at high speeds the latch used to pop and the only thing would save it would be the safety. Now that would grate on your nerves a tad though

 

[scottm]

The primary hood latch on my wife's 80 has failed to latch a couple times, something right at the latch is binding. I took it apart and lubed it, but it failed to latch again a couple days ago. I'll check it out this week when I change the oil.

 

[lurker]

The hood on my '94 bounces up and down going down the highway. I've adjusted the latch bracket down as far as it would go and the hood still has about an inch of travel. It's a little unnerveing to see it bouncing at 70 MPH. Any thoughts?

Thanks
Marde

Yep, I had this problem.

It took two things to fix it.

First I tried the 2 outside rubber contact points/Bolts.

Second , I needed to adjust the hood, it was about 3/4" out of adjustment foward. This caused my rubber contacts to lay incorrectly under the hood. Once I had the hood adjusted now the contacts were too high, bla, bla, bla you get the point.

 

[Landpimp]

you don't live in Seattle do you? I was on I5 last weekend, guy in a green 80 with bling bling wheels had his hood open bouncing up and down, I was honkin at him, pointing at the hood(how he could not notice it I dunno) He just ignored me.....

The hood on my '94 bounces up and down going down the highway. I've adjusted the latch bracket down as far as it would go and the hood still has about an inch of travel. It's a little unnerveing to see it bouncing at 70 MPH. Any thoughts?

Thanks
Marde