I was working on my truck today, when i went to close my hood it wouldn't close. What i found was part of my hoods safety latch bushing was missing. The safety latch has a spring loaded hook that swings out of the way when you press on it with your fingers to allow you to fully open your hood.
What happened to mine, the plastic bushing between the hooks pivot shaft and the hook failed, this allowed extra play between the hook and shaft, that allowed the hook to lift up and over the hooks stop stud.
In this first photo you can see that my safety hook has slipped passed the hook stop stud and is now above the stop stud.
Since we lift up on the hood lock lever to open our hood, in this condition it would not allow you to move that linkage up to open your hood. So if this bushing fails with your hood closed, it might become a big pain in the ass to open your hood.
So my suggestion would be to check the condition of your 30 plus years old safety hook bushing, if it's in poor condition, just replace it with a steel E clip.
In this next photo you can see the hood safety hook in it's correct position below the the catch stop stud.
This one shows where to install the E clip to take up the slop from the missing plastic bushing
This is the completed E clip install.
What happened to mine, the plastic bushing between the hooks pivot shaft and the hook failed, this allowed extra play between the hook and shaft, that allowed the hook to lift up and over the hooks stop stud.
In this first photo you can see that my safety hook has slipped passed the hook stop stud and is now above the stop stud.
Since we lift up on the hood lock lever to open our hood, in this condition it would not allow you to move that linkage up to open your hood. So if this bushing fails with your hood closed, it might become a big pain in the ass to open your hood.
So my suggestion would be to check the condition of your 30 plus years old safety hook bushing, if it's in poor condition, just replace it with a steel E clip.
In this next photo you can see the hood safety hook in it's correct position below the the catch stop stud.
This one shows where to install the E clip to take up the slop from the missing plastic bushing
This is the completed E clip install.