I'm having a hard time getting the front hood to latch and lock in place on my new Vintage Speedster. It looks like the post with a spring on it (on the underside of the hood) is adjustable, but I can't figure out how, or which way. Any ideas?
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This is a trial and error thing. There is a locknut above the spring on the post which allows you to screw the post up or down. Maybe screwing the post down a turn would help it engage the catch a little better.
~WB
On my car, I push the safety catch out of the way, then push the hood down to rest, then place BOTH hands, palm-down, onto the bottom few inches of the hood and push abruptly down and that makes the thing latch. It should be snug and tight when you do it that way and it'll latch and stay there. You really have to push hard to get the weather strip to compress all around and make it latch.
If THAT doesn't work and it's like most of ours, there should be a small slot on the inside of the hood to allow access to the top of the spring-loaded plunger. There should be a locknut up there and you can just squeak an open-end wrench in there to loosen it just a little bit to allow the plunger shaft to turn (it's threaded at the top).
Once the locknut is loose, there should be a screw-driver slot in the tip of the plunger (below the spring and cup) to let you turn the plunger one way or the other to adjust it up or down, as needed.
Once adjusted, re-tighten the locknut (be careful NOT to turn the plunger and mess up your adjustment) and you should be done.
I had same on my new vs when built. I put a bunch of rags around the latch mechanism and sprayed it with wd40 real good and it magically worked perfect after that
I had the opposite problem of the hood not releasing. I had to crawl under the hood and release it with a long screwdriver. After much technical measuring and deep calculations, I took a large ball pin hammer and hit until it aligned properly. It is a VW. Works flawlessly now.
