How to Replace Hood Latch 1994-2002 Dodge Ram 1500

Hey friends, it's Len here at 1A Auto. Today we're going to be working on our 1996 Dodge Ram 1500 and I'm going to show you how to remove and reinstall your hood latch assembly. It's going to be super easy. I can do it and you can do it, too. As always, if you need any parts, you can always check us out at 1aauto.com. Thanks.

Okay friends, so we're underneath the hood. We're going to see about taking off this hood latch right here. You have a mounting screw there and another one right there. We're going to use a 10-millimeter, and of course you could use a hand ratchet, an electric ratchet, an air impact gun if you want, whatever you want to use, but it's a 10-millimeter. That's what our bolt looks like. Set that aside where we can't lose it. Get this off of here. Bolt number two, same as the first, set it side. Here's our hood latch. Let's continue taking it apart. At this point, this part of the cable is just going to slide right through here. Once it does, we're going to take the inner part of the cable off of this part of the latch. So here we go. Let's see if I need something. Let me grab ... This is right here, so I'll just go with this. Here we are. Pull that out of there. There's your hood latch. Easy peasy.

Okay, so we've got our hood latch, whether it's new or used. We've got our cable right here. This functions. Okay? You can feel it moving. We're going to bring it right through. You got the inner part of the cable is going to go into the little hooky-do there. So whatever you got to do to get it in there, just wiggle it, jiggle it, whatever you got to do. That's in the hook. Turn it around so you can see now. We're going to slide this grooved area in just like that, same way we took it out. Make sure it's still in under there. That looks great.

Okay, we're going to line this up. Now, there's something to pay attention to. If you're reusing your old hood latch, you can see where the bolts were, right? You got the washer circles there. Same thing on the other side. You're going to want to line it up the same way. If you're replacing it, it's pretty good odds that you're going to have to readjust this a couple times to get it to latch down perfectly. In my case, I'm pretty lucky. Get these in here.

Generally speaking, you want it to be as level as possible, so you don't want one ear up and the other one down. This is what I'm talking about. Okay? If I go like this, it looks really wonky. Or like that it looks wonky. Just set it just right like that. Get this puppy ready to go. 10-millimeter's going to blast it in. This one right there. Just give them a little extra snug here. Here we are. Let's test it. Reach under here. What do you think of that, friends? Easy peasy.

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