So I did eventually get the hood open. After searching around for a good hour I found another tactic for getting the first latch released.

The release that the cable is connected to is housed in a plastic covering behind the grill. I took a flat bladed screwdriver with a long handle and pried the covering out of 3 of the rivets holding it in place. I could see that the release cable was no longer connected to anything (so much for yanking on it with pliers and nearly tearing it apart). You should be able to see where the eyehole on the end of the cable was supposed to be connected to, a small lever coming down from behind where the hood spring sits. Holding the plastic housing away with one screwdriver, you can use another to push the little lever to the left and release the hood.

Looks like i'm going to be using this to open the hood for a while until I can order a new cable and put it in. Tested the battery, it was bad so I got a new one in and no problems.

If pulling on the release cable won't do anything, this was the least destructive method i could find for getting the hood open.

 

Welcome to the forum Kyzer. Sounds like you found another way to get it open. Is your truck black? Run Happy?

 

Yeah I got the hood worked out.

It's a light gray. I want to say Niagara Gray because that's the only color option i've seen the name for that seems to match. Running quite nicely for my wife. I've got plans to go through the 60k maintenance on it as far as i can handle on my own. Looking forward to owning this and taking good care of it and I'm very thankful for the group here for help.

 

Had this happen on my truck today- I was able to take a utility knife and bumped it with a hammer to cut a t shaped slit in the protective tamper plastic cover through the front grill slots (Disco 2). With the hole open enough I used a long 3/8 extension, and pried the cover off (used a set of pliers to sit between the extension rod and metal so I wasn't prying up on the grill). With the plastic cover now popped off I was able to use the extension to tap the horizontal release plate on the back side to the left (back where the cable attatches to), the front side I imagined would be the same but must go right and your fighting the spring to do so. This popped the hood, I cleaned the area with spray lubricant and then unhooked the cable (has an eyelet that is on the cable which hooks into the afore used back side of latch) and then rerouted cable in front of the two middle rods which sit behind the grill. This took up enough slack in the cable to allow it to work. Hokey fix and not permanent but now I can get on to fixing what I was after and am not stuck with the hood closed until I get a new cable. Hope this helps without popping out headlight or destroying grill. Love this forum- saved me many tows to a shop. Thanks to all contributors.