[RocktimusPryme]

My 62 Safari wagon has the bad habit of the hood popping up while going down the road. Not often, but its happened twice, and I feel like its only a matter of time until it happens when Im going fast enough for it to get away from me before I can slow down and fix it.

Ive never experienced this, do old car hood latches get worn out? Is there an adjustment I should look at?

When it latches down I cant pull it up by hand, but hit a bump just right (it doesn't always have to be hard) and it will pop up sometimes.

[jamesq]

The latch is adjustable, refer to your service manual for procedure. BUT, be very careful not to over adjust or your hood won't open at all. I know this from personal experience.....

James Q

[tom s]

Doe it just open too the safety catch or go past it?Tom

[RocktimusPryme]

Originally Posted by tom s

Doe it just open too the safety catch or go past it?Tom

Safety catch. But if I were going fast enough I feel like the air pressure might over ride that.

I actually took a brief look at it before I left for work today and found a couple of loose bolts. Nothing looks overly worn. So that might be the problem. Its allowed to shift around a little on bumps because of the loose fasteners.

[jamesq]

Here is the latch adjustment procedure from my 63 manual, it should be similar.

James Q

[lust4speed]

Wonder if the hood is a little tight and the latch plate is not fully past the flat of the cone shaped top of the bolt. We had one that was only catching the top edge of the cone and wasn't seated and road vibration would work the plate out and pop the hood up. We loosened up the hood bolt for more clearance so the plate did come all the way in and that solved the hood coming up.

On another of our cars the latch plate had either chipped or worn a good sized area away from the the center of the latch plate and we had to find a donor assembly for that one.