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Broken Hood Releae Wires.................A Very Interesting Story

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Mar 9, 2009
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Yemen
Broken Hood Release Wires.................A Very Interesting Story

About 6 years ago my OEM hood release cable wire (.032" diameter) broke so I made a new one out of a much larger .050" diameter choke cable wire. About 6 months later that new wire broke so I replaced it with another .050" choke cable wire. About 6 months later THAT choke cable wire broke and I wondered how on earth those larger and much stronger wires were breaking. I had my hood open one morning and happened to glance over at my hood latch and saw something REALLY odd. I saw a tiny whiff of smoke rise up from somewhere under the latch. When I took a closer look I could see the hood release wire barely glowing orange right where it passed thru the latch assembly (???). I opened the driver's door and looked at the underside of my dashboard and noticed I had wrapped my courtesy light's extra 12" to 14" of insulated wire around the hood release cable's spiral housing about 3-4 times and that was likely causing the wire to "induct" current into the spiral housing and then into the wire itself. I unwrapped the insulated wire and couldn't find any damage to the wire's insulation so it had to be inducting current into the spiral housing and wire. So rather than wrapping the extra 12" to 14" wire around the spiral housing I wadded it into a little bundle then zip-tied it to the side of the housing. And that was the last time I had a broken hood release wire. Weird story, huh?
 
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I Knew Right Away

The moment I saw my hood release wire glowing orange I knew current was somehow getting into that wire. So when I saw the courtesy light wires wrapped around the spiral housing I knew right then there was current being inducted into the spiral housing. I never would have thought a measly 12 volts would be enough to cause an induction but it was enough to cause the wire to get hot enough to glow orange and anneal it until it finally broke under tension. Once I unwrapped the 12" to 14" of courtesy light wires my broken hood release wire problem ceased. Just one of the many unusual problems I have seen in my 50+ years of wrench twisting.
 

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