Hood Won't Open

[jfw]

We bought a 2000 RX300 about a month ago. The hood opened fine on 2 occasions. Now, when I trip the hood latch it clicks but doesn't pop up. How can I get at the latch? I have tried pushing down a on the hood and releasing pressure while someone releases the latch and that doesn't work

jfw

[SKperformance]

get someone to push the hood down while you pull the handle , it shoudl release once they let up on it,you probably got somethnig stuck ni there causing too much upwards force on the hood causing it not to be able to release

[jfw]

get someone to push the hood down while you pull the handle , it shoudl release once they let up on it,you probably got somethnig stuck ni there causing too much upwards force on the hood causing it not to be able to release

That doesn't work either.

[SKperformance]

then the cable has come off the handle

you need to find it under there and pull it with a piar of pliers

[jamokrx]

I have a 1999 RX300 on which the hood doesn't do it's 'preliminary' release when I pull on the under-dash hood lever - no 'click', just no response. The cable moves towards you when you pull on the cabin release, but there's no tension on it, and hence no response - it is attached to the release handle.I tried gripping the wire cable attached to this indoor 'handle', and pulled it towards me using a pair of pliers - it moved towards me, and seemed to offer some more 'tension' resistance as I pulled, but did nothing to open the 'preliminary' hatch on the hood (by that I mean the first step of the two-step process one normally uses - 1. release the inside handle by pulling it towards you 2. release the under-hood latch that step #1 moves the hood up by a couple inches so you can do step 2.

I could use 3 hands to pull the inside latch, pull the cable towards me with pliers, hold that in place, and have someone else pull the now-'more tensioned' cable with another set of pliers - but I fear that at a certain point, I'm going to break something I shouldn't.

Tried another method - bent some steel wire (not a coat hanger - stronger - actually a file cabinet divider support) so that I could put pressure on the latch that's just inside the front grill - what is normally the 'step 2' procedure above. Got some pretty good upward pressure on it, but no release of any kind occurred. Again, I'm reluctant to put any more pressure on it, as something might break - and I suspect (conjecture) that there are 2 'latch' mechanisms - step 1 which frees the 'grille' handle so that pushing (or pulling) it upwards lets you raise the hood.

Any 'solution' advice would be appreciated. Lacking that, maybe any diagrams that show the workings of both the inside and outside latch mechanisms might be helpful in figuring out the solution. Thanks so much in advance - has eaten a lot of time, so far with nothing to show for it.

[jamokrx]

Update on my post from Yesterday:

I finally was able to open the hood by taking a pair of pliers and pulling the 'release wire' attached to the hood release tab in side the cabin towards me - with a good deal of force - although at first, given how slack the wire was, even with the tab pulled towards me, I was afraid that the other end of the wire had come apart from whatever it was attached to, and I might be just making it harder to fix by pulling a loose wire through its shielding sheath further into the sheath, wherever that was. It popped the hood, and then I could access the latch behind the grille and open the hood fully.

But a couple questions remain, and TIA to anyone who can answer them:

I see no way to shorten and attach the wire on the inside cabin hood release tab - it seems mysterious as to even how to remove the wire and the metal thing that attaches it to the tab off. Any idea of how to do that? Diagrams? minus that I have to stand on my head with a pair of pliers each time to do step 1 of opening the hood, with the possibility that it feels like the wire might snap somewhere.

Also, is there some 'emergency hood release' mechanism on the car/behind the grill/whatever? I have read mention of it while googling this problem, but nothing more than a mention of some 'small box' (?) behind the grill that is an emergency release mechanism.

Thanks to all in advance.