This is a tale of misery and woe that has a happy ending. The hood latch on my Ford Expedition wouldn't fully latch so I examined the problem and found that the small weak spring that connects to the hood latch cable had come loose. Well Hell, I can fix that. I spent 1 hour each day for 4 days out in the screaming hot sun trying to hook that little bugger back on and it kept coming off or not working when I was finished. Well, screw this..... Tomorrow...... I'll just........take it to..... the.... Uhhhhhh. What's this? Hmmmmmmm........ I think these two small bolts hold the whole latch assembly on. If I take these two small bolts out I should be able to lift the whole assembly out and put the damn spring back on and bend the Hell out of it so it can't slip off again. Uh Oh... There is something too close to the bolts for me to use a small socket. Oh, wait, that thing that's in the way is made of flexible plastic. I went and got my small socket and ratchet and sure enough that thing just fell off in my hand. Wam, Bam, Thank you Mam. I hooked that small spring back on and bent the crap out of it so it can't come off and then closed the hood, went into the cab and pulled the hood latch and Bam. It worked. I spent the rest of the afternoon patting myself on the back then alternating to beating myself up for being so stupid as to not seeing the two bolts in the first place.
