"Ress199" <ress199@aol.com> wrote
> The hood release cable in my 1994 Civic EX has been sticking near the latch
for
> a while now preventing the hood from locking shut. I occassionally need to
jam
> a screwdriver against the cable to unseize it. This time, however, i think i
> dislodged the cable from the bracket which allowed me to close (lock) the
hood,
> but i am no longer able to open it using the hood release lever under the dash
> (the cable is slack, not broken).
>
> Any easy way to open the hood?

If it's just a matter of taking up the slack, the following is semi-easy.

My 91 Civic's hood release cable has been slack for years. I have been opening
the hood by holding the cable end with a pair of pliers and pulling (I'm a woman
with little upper body strength, so I should think most men could handle this
easily).

Last year my cable stuck, and I couldn't open it even with my usual force using
the pliers. I ended up rigging my car's wheel jack, attaching the hood release
cable end to the part of the jack that ordinarily rises most. I angled the jack
in the passenger foot well it so the forces were all being applied as correctly
as possible, and got the cable pulled enough to pop the hood. Took maybe five
minutes after I figured out how to rig it. Maybe 30 minutes after I had the
idea.

Subsequently, I removed the hood release mechanism on the front of the car
(though it can't be fully detached), washed it down with WD-40 (and it *was*
full of sand and dirt), applied white lithium grease, and voila, everything
worked much better. I'm back to opening it with the pliers. No big deal.

> And, once open, any suggestions on how to fix
> the cable problem (hopefully without routing a new cable from the dash)?

IIRC from asking around, routing a new cable is hell to do.

I think the Honda maintenance manuals recommend white lithium grease be applied
to hood and trunk lock mechanisms and door hinges about every two years.