Bonnet cable broken

[ButtyBoi]

Hi all. First ever post on a forum..... I have a 57 Aygo which seems to have a snapped bonnet release cable. The lever in the footwell has no tension yet the cable looks fine. I have tried pulling it with pliers etc to no avail. I can see the lock mechanism from the front of the car by looking through the small gap between the bonnet and the grill. i have tried pushing different parts but still no joy. I have also looked from under the car but cannot see anything obvious. Is there any way to get the bonnet open???? If I can get it open how hard would be then to renew the cable???? And while I'm here what about renewing the auxiliary belt???? Nightmare this has been, complete dead Battery is how I found out about the bonnet release, then whilst looking under the car for that I saw that the belt had gone ( probably from when I bump started it to get the thing closer back home ).... Thanks in advance....

[eygo]

if you can raise the front of the car you will see a panel just behind the bumper it is held on with about 10 screws

(full width of car and approx 7" deep) remove this panel and you can get behind the bumper and maybe have access to the release mechanism.

[ButtyBoi]

I did think about that but it looked as though the mechanism was behind the radiator, (that's from looking at it through the grill). Think I'll give it a go in the morning, weather permitting...

[eygo]

sorry i cant be of any more help ,we dont have the aygo anymore

[ButtyBoi]

Thanks for replying, I'll give it a go as I'm at my whits end with it....

[TomdeGuerre]

Maybe it's just the outer cable that's come loose. There's usually a clip which holds the outer cable at the bonnet catch end and if it's not holding the outer cable then the bonnet release lever doesn't work. See if you can get hold of the outer cable just forward of the release lever and pull it downwards to take up the slack then, keeping the tension on it, pull the release.

If that doesn't work you'll need to see how you can get into the mechanism with a screwdriver or lever to release it. Get somebody to press down on the bonnet while you do this because the bonnet is spring loaded down to prevent flutter.

[Aygotoground]

I found this thread when my cable failed about six months ago. I had only just bought the car and this was the second time I'd pulled the bonnet lever. I pulled the release and it just kept moving forward, there was no reistance followed by sudden looseness as you'd expect from a broken cable. I tried the obvious thing of using a knife blade in the gap of the bonnet lip but not even close.

I made the mistake of taking the car to a Toyota dealership and asked if they could open it. After a couple of hours, a guy told me the mechanic had done it "with a very long screwdriver" . Great. Not so great. The workshop manager said he wouldn't allow the car off the premises with the bonnet insecure. Let me rig up a wire to allow me to release the bonnet at home then. No. What's the matter with it? "Lock's siezed solid and the cable's snapped" he said and quoted me £120 for parts plus labour and VAT before the car could leave!

This is the short version. We had a lengthy discussion. In the end the bonnet was closed again and I was relieved of £60!

After many weeks of fruitless tinkering I had still failed to release the bonnet, then the Beast from the East showed up. As luck would have it, I slid into a snowdrift at the end of our lane and the grille panel at the bottom of the bumper panel was pushed into the bumper. This allowed me to get a torch into the void and have a good look. I had bought myself a lock and cable off the bay and so, as I knew what the lock looked like from below I was just able to recognise the return spring between the two air con pipes.

I took the bottom panels off the underside of the car (not hard, I'd already done that in a previous attempt) and was just able to get my arm far enough in to use an 18 inch length of steel rod to probe behind the bit of spring I could just see to where I knew the release lever was, you can't see the lock mechanism at all from underneath, and bingo, after just a few attempts it was free.

Contrary to what the manager told me, the catch was rust free and the cable wasn't broken. What was broken was the stupid little square plastic thing that's held onto the cable by the nipple. This thing has a small stud on the front which clips into a hole in the release arm and that had simply sheared off. What a stupid design.

My remedy was to find a small bolt which fitted in the hole in the release arm, cut a transverse slot half way through the bolt for the cable to sit in and insert the bolt followed by a washer, then the cable, another washer and then the nut. It's now working fine and well lubricated with Lithium grease.

I would suggest you try to prevent this happening to you. maybe put a loop of wire round the cable and release arm or something. Believe me, it's not something you want to go through