Really hard to get the "frunk" open
 

I've noticed that it's nearly impossible to open my front "hood" on my 2000 Boxster. It's a pretty base car, so I'm guessing it's cable actuated. If I work at it, I can get it open, but would like to resolve this issue before something bigger (more expensive) happens. Any ideas? Could it be that a little WD40 might help?

Mine too, I have a thread on 986 forum about it, but haven't had a chance to get further into the troubleshooting.

Manual release for front trunk very hard on 2000S, where to look to fix? - 986 Forum - for Porsche Boxster Owners and Others

The handle is very hard to pull at the end of its travel, even if the hood is already up. So there were a couple of theories that maybe the hood was catching or pulling tight the release, but I don't think that's the case.

Sometimes I'm afraid that I am going to snap a cable or something, probably with some ice cream or something in the front.

If I get it figured out I'll post back here, and I'll watch in case you figure it out first :)

Steve

Two heads are beter then one.

I'm back on this thread because my cable snapped this weekend about an inch from the handle. I have got the cover removed for the handles, and now I am in the process of finding the emergency release cable so I can open the front trunk and see what's going on there. I have got replacement parts coming but am wondering how to replace the cable; is it going to be hard to get the new cable in there. And I need to have it done by next weekend for a DE ;) So I will report back soon with new information, and I will be glad that the front trunk was empty when I tried to open it. Literally 2 days before was the previous time I used the front trunk and it was full of groceries.. good thing it didn't happen then :)

Ok I have gotten this all resolved. I found it impossible to get the old cable out (the cable has an outer sleeve and an inner wire rope). Where it runs through the driver side fender area and passes into the cockpit was very tight, and in the cockpit it is behind the relay panel and fusebox. Very tight.

So what I did was pull the inner wire rope out, leaving the outer housing, and made a new inner cable out of 1x19 3/64" wire rope. I used a swaging tool to put a loop on one end with a thimble, attached it to the release handle, threaded it through and when it came out the other end I swaged another end on, reattached it to the hood latch. After lots of fiddling and cursing, I finally got it wrapped up around midnight on Friday night.. so I didn't get a chance to take any pictures.

While the hood latch was out I hit it pretty good with some type of lubricating fluid (dang if I can't remember the type, I think it may have been white lithium grease based) and the action on it is much smoother than before. I also relocated the emergency front trunk releaser to the tow hook hole in the front bumper in case it ever snaps again.

If I could go back in time I would pre-emptively take out the front hood latch and really lubricate it good. You can do it much better when it is out of the car (maybe? I guess you could hit all the major points with it still in the car if you removed the bolts and removed the plate that covers it up. You could leave the hood release cables still attached that way). I would also mark the location of the bolts that hold it in so I could return it to the same adjustment when it is time to put it back in (although that didn't really take that much fiddling to do)

Steve