I'm 3 weeks into owning my new to me 1990 LS400. Bought it w 61K miles. Original owner donated it to charity so It has a few issues for me to deal with. One being the battery that dies on its own which I suspect is due to no idiot buzzer for leaving lights on or courtesy exiting delay (which my 89 LeBaron GT Convertible has go figure) , and that leads me to my new discovery this morning after jumpstarting. The hood latch wont lock. The safety catches. the hood closes flush. With the hood using a screw driver and a wrench I can up the mechanism will rotate into the lock position. Nothing looks out of alignment. It just wont hold locked.

I'm assuming if the cable was broken it wouldn't release. I'm thinking I may just need to remove and clean the latch or order a new one. The car is really clean and no sign of problems before but didn't know if there something else to look at? Thanks in advance. -Joe

 

Wow that's low miles. Are you sure the cable is returning and not just holding it in the release position? That is one part you don't want failing and locking the hood closed, it would be one of the worse things to deal with on these cars. If your not sure about that latch I would not be latching the hood closed. Nice low mile in good shape car I hope you don't scrape any paint off fooling with the hood latch. They are not easy to remove, that is to do it with out messing stuff up.

Oh if the release lever in the car doesn't return that is a sign the cable is still in release mode. I have a car that does that on occasion. And just the safety latch catches it. It could be a weak return spring or sticky cable.