...I worked on my sister's car instead....
As submitted to the Australian Ford Forums.....
2004 Ford Territory bonnet release.
First of all....I replaced one today for my sister - her car...my problem. That's what families do I guess.
Brother-in-law helped. Just under 3 hours to replace the cable and put the car back together.
What sort of demented brain-dead custard-eating porch-monkey designs this crap???? I mean, how the hell are you supposed to actually get that body grommet back in place without dismantling the entire dash assembly?
No problem, I used my cable snake and a roll of electrical tape. But what a frigging drama, and totally unnecessary to design (I use that word loosely) something so simple into a maintenance nightmare of extraordinary proportions.
After removing the front wheel,, and undoing all those stupid Christmas Tree clips, you can actually see how carefully FORD laid that cable in a twisted fashion around the front end wiring loom. Undoing the bonnet release catch was fun....idiot on the production line must have used a scaffold pole on the end of his torque wrench to set that bastard up. Unnecessary again.
Pulling the fuse box and body panels are challenging enough with all the interfering items, like the mile and a half of cable for the added on Bluetooth power supply that some local Auto-Sparky thought he was clever in doing had done. Probably charged way too much given that it was such a mess.
So finally after 3 attempts to pull the new cable in, managed to fluke it through the double-skin into the interior of the car. I am still concerned at the tight curves the cable must take in it's very limited space for a route...but the bonnet releases easily and smoothly...so I'll take that as a win.
This all started when a "Service Technician" at a local agents garage pulled too hard on the release and broke the plastic handle. No admission of liability or guilt...even though the handle was dangling around the floor upon collection. Typical punkawallers.
Anyway, it's all fixed up now, and all together again, even if it does need a body screw in it now to prevent the release handle from pushing forward under spring tension....try as I might, it was impossible to get all that springiness out.
Thanks for reading.
For the benefit of readers here - bonnet = hood
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