Hood Latch Won't Catch

[milano maroon]

The hood latch on my '97 Camry won't catch, only being held closed by the safety catch. I have screwed the rubber stops on both front fenders down all the way (even removed them), have sprayed enough PB Blaster on the mechanism to make a puddle on the floor. I can manually make the catch lock by pushing down with a screwdriver. Cable works and will release it just fine. Just won't catch by pushing the hood down. Car was in a minor front ender two or three years ago but the hood latch has worked just fine up until now.

Any ideas? Is there any adjustment of the mechanism. Only ideas left for me are to slot the two mounting holes but don't know what to do with the lower bolt that has the cap on it. Or take it to the dealer.

What do you guys think?

Thanks for any help, Jeff.

[fullofzen]

Originally Posted by milano maroon

The hood latch on my '97 Camry won't catch, only being held closed by the safety catch. I have screwed the rubber stops on both front fenders down all the way (even removed them), have sprayed enough PB Blaster on the mechanism to make a puddle on the floor. I can manually make the catch lock by pushing down with a screwdriver. Cable works and will release it just fine. Just won't catch by pushing the hood down. Car was in a minor front ender two or three years ago but the hood latch has worked just fine up until now.

Any ideas? Is there any adjustment of the mechanism. Only ideas left for me are to slot the two mounting holes but don't know what to do with the lower bolt that has the cap on it. Or take it to the dealer.

What do you guys think?

Thanks for any help, Jeff.

Hey Jeff -- did you ever get this fixed? Looking for some advice on this matter myself.

[milano maroon]

Yes I did. I ended up taking the entire mechanism off, took it apart and cleaned and greased it. The funny looking bolt head is a security cap over a regular bolt. Need to remove that first. The service manual has a little blurb on this.

None of that really helped though. I used a die grinder and had to lengthen the adjustment slot probably a 1/4" to give the mechanism enough travel to engage and lock.

This is my daughters car, I only see it periodically but when she was home last I noticed the hood was not properly latched. What is so baffling is why. No evidence of collision or anything which could alter the alignment.

Anyway, that's what it took to fix it.