Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Bonnet Catches

Yesterday when I went to wash the car I couldn’t release the two front bonnet catches, when trying to push them down they appeared to be coming up against something. After a good bit of fiddling the passenger side opened and seemed free enough on the spring. Looking across at the offside I couldn’t see anything obstructing it and then when reaching across to open it while watching from underneath it also opened and appeared to be working normally.
I can’t find any reason for it and find it strange both forward catches sticking at the same time when I’ve never had any problems before.
Any other similar experiences out there?

On my car the catch slides between two Whitworth securing nuts and there is little tolerance. Due to wear or grit or angle of depression then the slider part hits the nut.
Lining up the nut flats with the slider helps.
I once changed the nuts to unf equivalent stainless....clunking and stuck every time. I once had to undo the catch receiver from the wing (nuts on underside!).

Hope this helps

On my Series 1 the rearmost catch just stopped working and after some puzzled searching found the retaining hook had in fact become to deflect away and out of alignment with the catch itself since the short length of horizontal support frame to which the hook part is attached had become partially unbonded and whilst looked ok was moving. Could your front catches be suffering a similar problem, is the support hook still firm and not flexing?....just a thought.

Thoughts are that front of hinge strip has moved somehow since both front catches affected.

You're not the first person to have that issue.

Check out this 2013 thread on the same subject.

Bonnet catch thread

I find it difficult to open the front catch first, but no problem once the rear ones have been released. It seems from the 2013 link above that it's advised to open the rear ones first anyway.

Thank you for comments and advice, nothing appears slack or to have moved, the bonnet position and gaps also appear as before, I usually open front and rear catches at the same time today it was back to normal. Hears hoping it was “just being a Morgan”

The recommended way is to release the rear catch first, then the front.
Reverse order when closing the bonnet.

When I bought my 2007 Aero earlier this year the catches (particularly the front two) were pretty stiff. I took them all off and left them in a bath of Gunk for a couple of hours, gave them a scrub and a rinse and re-assembled with the lithium grease - massive improvement!

As a footnote today I took all the catches off and gave them a good clean, the front ones were a bit gungy but nothing untoward, new grease applied and all refitted.