Hood Torsion Bars

One thing that has never been right on my car is opening the hood.  When I pull the handle, the hood only opens to the first catch on the latch and I have to be outside of the car, lifting slightly on the corner of the hood while I reach back through the steering wheel and pull the handle again.  I'm just glad I have long arms as it is a stretch.

I removed the torsion bars as part of painting the car.  So I thought it would be a good time to solve this problem.

I measured the weight of the hood as is was almost closed by using a bathroom scale.  The weight at that point was only 12 lbs., but I didn't have the hood pad nor bows, so perhaps a pound or two more.  Then I put one end of each torsion bar in a vise and pressing down using the scale until the bar was rotated about 90° (like the hood being closed), one bar had 11 lbs. of force while the other had 18.  So a total of about 30 lbs.  Seemingly enough to lift a 12 lb. hood?

However, the torsion bar is only about 11" long while the hood from the hinges to the latch pin is 45", so about 4 to 1 lever arm.  So the 30 lbs. only has about 7 lbs. lifting force at the rear of the hood.

I also checked, cleaned and painted the hood latch and it seems to be working correctly.

It turned out that the problem was the two spring loaded rubber bumpers at each rear corner.  Adjusting those for more force caused the hood to unlatch correctly.