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Hood Latch Broken

The struts that hold up the hood on my 4th Generation Toyota 4Runner have been slowly giving out and one day it completely did. My hood dropped down on its own and somehow broke the hood latch clip. As a result of this, my hood was stuck closed. In order to open the hood again, I’d have to reach through the grille and lift on the latch with my finger manually (circled in red below). I discovered that my hood latch was broken.

4runner 4th gen hood latch

After getting the hood open, I see the damage. A tiny clip that connects the latch handle the rod.

4runner 4th gen hood latch

The handle that unlocks the hood with broken clip seen on left of photo.

4runner 4th gen hood latch

The rod above should be connected to the clip.

toyota door rod clip 69759-20110

New OEM Toyota part #69759-20110 on eBay

toyota door rod clip 69759-20110

Another view of the new oem part #69759-20110 on eBay

69759-20110 old and new clip

New clip (left) next to broken clip (right)

69759-20110 new clip installed

New clip installed

4runner 4th gen hood latch fixed

Rod connected to new clip and then locked in place.

The hood now opens and closes properly. Now would be a good time to replace the hood struts as it is easy to do and will prevent you from breaking the hood latch again in the future.

Author

Hi there! I'm Scott and I run The Track Ahead. My goal is to write helpful articles, tutorials, and reviews based on my personal experience with car maintenance and detailing. I've been wrenching on and detailing cars for 15+ years and now share my knowledge with others on this site to help them care for their vehicles.

16 Comments

  1. Thanks for your post! I spent several hours trying to figure out how to fix the same problem in my 2005 Toyota 4Runner–went back and forth on the parts I needed–not a lot of info and reliable pics of parts that may be needed then came across your post

  2. Oh. My. God. They broke that clip at the dealership and told me it came in that way. Ok, it has 280k miles, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. But the mechanic told me there was no clip available and he’d have to replace the whole latching assembly for like $300. So I just dealt with the inconvenience of reaching in to open it. I finally googled the problem and found your page. Of course it’s an easy, cheap repair. Thanks!

  3. 4running and C5 Reply

    Perfect. ’05. Shop broke mine during oil change and have been meaning to replace that little keeper. So glad I found this b/c I was not about to buy the entire assembly! Thanks (at 255k)!!

  4. Thanks for the part number of the clip. I ordered 2 today on Ebay.

  5. I wish I would have stumbled on your post before my journey to find the part/part number for the rod clip.
    Anyway, great post and thanks for helping out the 4runner community.

  6. Hey Scott, thank you for the information, I was wondering if this clip is the same one used on the other end of the rod, i.e. both ends, thank you! I appreciate the info.

    • You’re welcome. Sorry I don’t have my 4Runner anymore so I can’t run out and check, but I did a bit of research online. For some reason I can’t find the part on various Toyota OEM parts sites, but I did notice that the car does use this kind of clip in different places on the vehicle (such as the inside of the door handles and such). One thing I noticed is that the clip (69759-20110) that I referenced in my post, seems to have a different orientation than the clip that you are talking about. I would take the two out and compare… I think they are opposite facing. I noticed there is this clip (69759-20040) that seems to be opposite facing, but I don’t know if it’s the correct part or not. I would first take the two clips out and compare to verify if they are indeed the same or opposite facing. Also, either clip may still work as it just needs to pop into the hole on one side and snap onto the rod on the other. Hope that helps a bit.

  7. You were correct! They are the same, I just picked one up for about 3 dollars from the dealer. Thanks again Scott!

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