Has anyone had any success sourcing a replacement hood release cable? I found a few generic fit parts, and I believe someone (here) suggested a motorcycle shop might be able to fab one.
I did see a NOS cable recently sell on eBay last month, however like all H-Body parts there was only one and it sold quickly for way too much money.
If you happen to break a cable where the retaining clip mounts (just behind the round hat looking part) at the handle end of the cable...and the swaged on cable ends didn't snap off you can repair that cable with parts obtained at your local Ace Hardware store. I did this when my cable broke, and was able to make a lasting repair with threaded lamp parts. The metal tube I used is threaded on the outside, and is used to bolt it onto the release handle, the swaged on end of the cable passes through that threaded piece, nuts and washers hold the threaded part securely to the handle where the round end fits in and the retainer clip used to fit behind the lager round plastic part. I did have to trim back the plastic on my cable back about two inches from where the clip went on to secure the cable to the handle. I left the modified trimmed plastic cable part of the old cable flat where the cable wire sticks through it. This gave the new metal threaded tube a place to butt up against the modified cable end. Then I used a small hose clamp on the threaded tube end that fits up against the the plastic modified end to keep the cable from shifting off the threaded tube. Wrapped it with black tape to prevent scraping my hand up if I ever go under the dash to do anything. Cable works fine and any slop in the cable can be adjusted out at the handle where I threaded washers and nuts to both sides of the threaded tube.
I did try an aftermarket cable once before doing this cable modification, and was very unhappy with the aftermarket cable.
The handle on the aftermarket cable just didn't have the correct angle for the cable to point toward the location where it goes through the kick panel. This made the new aftermarket cable virtually unusable, it was just too hard to pull the handle to release the hood latch.
If you look at your stock handle when it is bolted under the dash board you will notice it angles the cable toward the kick panel on the left side...this keeps the cable from binding up unless the original cable gets dried out and the latch under the hood is dried out too. Make sure to keep that stuff lubed up once in a while.
Mike - Vega2008