Ford Talladega/Mercury Spoiler II Hood Release Project
If you own a Talladega or Spoiler II you will want to read our new Project on our Project Car Page. If your car has an interior hood release you might also be interested in this project. Because of the special extended noses on the Ford Talladega and Mercury Cyclone Spoiler II the factory had to install a hood cable and release pull from the front of the car to the interior to open the hood.
Since so few of these cars were ever built finding partsto repair such an item can be a real challenge.
One of our project Talladegas arrived without a hood release cable. Every time you wanted to open the hood it required laying down on your back in front of the car, reaching up behind the bumper, feeling for the hood release latch and opening the hood. This is not something you want to do at the gas station to check your oil!
I put off fixing this until I couldn’t put it off any more. I didn’t know were to start for parts. I had the interior pull handle but nothing from there to the hood latch. Luckily, we do have an original Spoiler II and a restored Talladega which helped significantly in this project. They provided excellent “go-bys” for this project. You can go to our Project Page and read all about it.
Total cost of this repair, if you have an original pull handle, is approximately $20. If your handle needs to be rechromed as ours does your cost will be higher. If you don’t have a pull handle and want to use the one that is very similar on the NAPA part it is included in the cost.
If you still have the external cable in place but the wire inside the cable which actually “pulls” the latch you can purchase just the wire and fish it through the existing cable. This will be even less expensive and easier to do. You will still need to attach it to the hood release pull in the interior.
