Suddenly, I have weak hood springs...

[ntmatter]

I had my Viper in for a fairly major service - managed to grenade the #3 bearing and needed to fix the crank and a few rods. Anyway, the repair took a month and the car runs great, but now I have two hood-related problems:

1. The hood springs don't even try to hold the hood up. I used to have only very occassional hood issues (when on an incline, really), but now the hood doesn't even try to stay up.

2. Secondary catch - when I pop the front latch the hood goes all the way up in the front - the catch looks like it's sticking.

The repair shop says that the springs are naturally weak - not their problem. They also say that the catch is probably gummed up and sticking, but it never happened before. Anyway, my questions:

1) I've seen some repair threads on lazy springs, which mention an $80 per side part. I believe this is the pivot spring - do I need to replace this one or the lift spring (which I believe is around $250 per side).

2) Has anyone had a similar latch experience? Can I just spray some brake cleaner on this to clean it out?

 

[JimDavis MT 97GTS 650R]

I might say my hood springs worked just fine until I decided to lubricate them. BIG MISTAKE ! They haven't worked well since. You can lube the catch and slide but I recommend you don't lube the hinges. If you have, wash them out with a high pressure wash, and they should work better than not. The catch issue is probably the result of the hood being mis-adjusted. No doubt the hood was removed when they did the engine work and you are just going to re-adjust it trial and error till you get it right. This has been my experiance.

 

[Supercharged Vipermad]

I was wondering if the shop lubricated them, thinking they were doing you a favor? Not too sure if that is likely since you probably had Cam work on it? Dunno...I've been out of the PNW for what seems like eons.

 

[STUGOTS]

See I have a diffrent problem my springs work great its my hinges that are messed up and wont let the hood go "all the way up" im missing about 10 or so inches I need to get new hood springs AND hinges so if you or anyone else finds where to get them let me know as well.

 

[GraphiteGTS]

Don't lube the springs.

 

[Ron]

New springs will not help. Springs don't typically weaken rather the hinges seems to loosen up via lubrication. I know as I replaced them 3 times looking for that special set of high tension springs.

As others have said, delub the hinge and they will tighten up. Agree on the alignment issue on the hood latch too.