Some time ago I fitted new catches and found that was the easy part. Adjusting them to work in unison with the hood is the total pits and I had the latches stuck, totally “inoperable ” very, very often. The cable was under such stress I thought…”any minute now”.
In the end I resorted to looping a cord around the sliding part of the passenger’s side catch. I could then pull the cable lever and the cord at exactly the same time and….hey presto.
Although I got things working smoothly MMC had put uprated springs in the catches, I think circa 2008, so more “pull” was required. Therefore, I have left the cord in place, easily found on top of the spare and saves any stress on the cable.
Incidentally, I have no bent male parts but do have some adjustment on the hoop brackets on each side. My hood, incidentally is a hybrid with easi up rear and 9 stud front.
Regarding the two fixings in each catch I used medium thread locker.
