Read several posts regarding inoperative hood latch mechanism I recently encountered a problem while on a 2500 mile trip in my 89 after attempting the 2 man release to no avail and WD40. I gave up and didn't check under the hood the last 750 miles of the trip. When I decided to fix the problem with the latch I found that a mystery bolt had fallen into the mechanism causing it to jam. I was able to gently pry the plastic grill enough to get a 1/4" drive extension and 10MM socket onto the 3 bolts holding the latch in place. After removing the bolts the whole mechanism came out and the problem was corrected by just removing the bolt. I also removed the shield that keeps one from accessing the latch so that if the cable should ever fail I could access the lever with some sort of tool to open, hope this help anyone that thinks the hood or latch must be destroyed to force open.

 

Thank you, a little trick.