Please help

[clubryde]

Good morning everyone

ok I bought a 69 bug yesterday everything went fine until i went to open the trunk compartment and now it wont open. I tried pressing on the hood and using the latch and nothing worked. Hopefully someone can help me because i found a book inside the trunk that was the how to keep you vw alive. I really wanna read it but again i cant get it to open. Thankyall for your time

[clubryde]

Nm I was able to figure it out thankyall though

[FJCamper]

Hi Clubryde,

The wire cable between the glove box lever and hood latch is broken or loose.

The emergency release trick is to lay under the front bumper, and look up under the body to where the cable attaches to the latch. Sometimes you can use a pair of needle nose pliers to pull on the cable or cable lever and it will pop the release.

The other emergency method is to open the glove box. Original glove boxes are made of pressed paper and fibre. They tend to tear and collapse on the lever side over time. Replacement glove boxes are hard plastic and much stronger. If you have an old original type, the lever (riveted to the material) may be loose. It's okay to just go ahead and finish tearing out the lever. There may or may not be a cable still attached to it. If there is, pull the cable and hope it pops the hood latch.

My guess is you'll be more successful from the bottom approach.

After all this, you should replace the cable and glove box.

FJC

[Marc]

Nm I was able to figure it out thankyall though

Good. But for the benefit of some future reader of this thread I'll throw in my 2 cents anyway.

When you tug on the hood-release lever in the glovebox, the box tends to shift down which soaks up some of the cable motion. They put a stiff foam block under the inboard end of the box to help resist that, if it's not doing the job use your other hand to lift up on the top of the box as you pull the lever.

If the cable breaks you're screwed, you have to cut the handle into thirds so you can twirl the end bits around and unscrew them from the bracket inside...pretty much impossible to do without at least a little paint damage.

I have no idea what Frank's talking about, you can't see sh*t from "under the bumper" on a Beetle...but if you don't have a spare tire you're in luck, you can jack up the front end and go under to finagle the rear cover plate (the one nearest the beam) for the shift rod access hole out of the way, and go through the hole with a long screwdriver or jack handle to manipulate the release mechanism. Often you can use Vise-Grips or pliers to coax the retaining screw out from the back side; if not you'll have to mangle some sheetmetal a bit, but thankfully it's in a place that's pretty much out of sight.

When making repairs/adjustments to the hood latch, never shut the hood until you have done a test of the release function. Remove the "spike" from the bracket (count the threads to see how deep it's installed first) and jam it into the receiver. When you pull the release lever it should eject and fly several feet across the room. Only after its function is verified should you reinstall the spike and shut the hood.

[FJCamper]

Marc is right.

I had brainfade and was thinking of working through the access plate, but didn't explain that. I spent a long angry afternoon way back opening the hood on a '68 Bug like that.

Thank God there was no spare in the way.

FJC

[clubryde]

thank yall so much