Front Hood Lock Cable Release Replacement, Is there a DIY available for replacement? Options

[earossi]

I need to replace the wire cable and its sheath that operates the front trunk hood. Is there an "easy" way to do this? Any pitfalls? Better yet, is there a DIY writeup out there. I used the Search feature but nothing turned up.

[earossi]

OK. I played with the car tonight and answered one half of my original question. Replacing the sheathe is easy. Done entirely from inside the front trunk. You simply bend up the 5 positioning tabs that hold the cable in place. Only need to bend them up enough to slip the cable out.

Then, I disconnected the wire pull at the latch and pulled the cable and sheathe out of the car. The rear of the sheathe is a slip fit into a ferrule that goes through the firewall.

The only tricky part was feeding the new sheathe through the body down by the headlights. To make it easy for me, I simply taped the end of the new sheathe to the old sheathe so that as I pulled the old sheathe through the body holes, it pulled the new sheathe along with it.

Upon examination I noted that the old sheathe was brittle and had broken about mid length where it sits on top of the wheel well. Over the years, water had found its way into that break and there was about a one foot length of the wire pull that was severely corroded. That made the pull so rough that it drug on the sheathe channel creating enough friction to make it extremely difficult to pull the cable from within the cabin.

But, I have still not gotten an answer to the second part of my question, which is the DIY on how to remove the pull handle in the cabin. In my car, the area around the pull handle is a mass of wiring bundles. I can't even see up into that area very well.

I assume there are two bolts that hold the handle assembly to the body. If so, what type of bolts are they (I'm assuming socket head cap screws). And, if they are socket head, what size socket is required? And, do I need to remove the wiring bundles to gain access?