Hood won't latch

[Cougsfan]

I am experiencing a weird problem with my 4720ch. The hood would no longer latch. It has always been a little hard to latch, requiring a bit if a "slam" but it finally wouldn't latch at all. Neither the hood and the chassis have damage, no evidence of anything being bent. Upon checking and measuring thing closely it became apparent that the latch mechanism that is mounted to the hood was coming to rest in front of the latch pin that is mounted to the chassis. The latch pin on the chassis is adjustable while the latch mechanism on the hood is fixed. With the latch pin adjusted all the way forward is was still just under 1/2" of being far enough forward to clear the hood's latch mounting hardware and mate up with the latch(???) Like I say, every thing looks good, nothing appears to be damaged or bent. If it were bent that severely the damage should be obvious! I fabricated a wedge to place under the back of the latch pin so when it is tightened down it throws the latch pin is far enough forward to now latch. So I can at least close and latch my hood. There is about a half inch gap between the back of my hood and the body cowling. I think it has always been like that, but I am not sure. I checked to see if the hood hinges were adjustable and perhaps the hood has slid forward (I found that they are not adjustable). Even though it now latches with my jury rig, it still has me baffled as to what happened and what is wrong. I could re fabricate a latch pin or modify mine, and I may, but I would rather find the real problem. Anyone have any insight?

 

[ptsg]

Any chance that a spring could fell off the mechanism? Looks like the 20 series uses a different latch than the 15 series. On mine, the latch pin is on the hood and the mechanism is on the chassis.

Could you take a couple of pictures to see exactly how the mechanism works? Everything is well build and sturdy in this tractors, I doubt it could even bend something.

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

A half inch gap between back of hood and cowl? Sounds like the hood has been off of it, and when they put it back on, they didn't line it up as it was before. If you loosen the bolts holding the hood to the hinges, can you move the hood rearwards, towards the cowl, and then tighten the bolts again?

My latch is on my chassis too, like ptsg's.

 

[Cougsfan]

The latch mechanism has it's spring and appears to work fine. I did loosen the hood mount bolts and tried to slide it back, but it doesn't appear to have slotted holes because it wouldn't move. I see no other adjustments. The funny thing is that the hood appears to fit the contour of the rubber seal just fine up front, but the latch mechanism just comes to rest in front of the latch pin. The hood has never been off.
I took some pictures. Picture 1 is the latch mechanism. I replaced the Allen head screws on the latch mechanism with hex head bolts (easier to take off a dozen times). Picture 2 is the latch pin. You can see it is adjusted all the way forward, and if you look close, you can see the metal strip I put under the bottom trailing edge to lean the top forward even further to make it to where the hood will latch. Picture 3 is the latch mechanism mounting bracket looking from inside the hood. Picture 4 shows the gap at the rear of the hood. I am wondering if other 4720's have that same gap?

 

[ptsg]

The gap between the back of the hood and the body cowling looks normal. Even mine has about 1/2" gap between the hood and the dashboard and it is a completely different series.

Here is a video of a 4720 where the gap is visible. Branson 4720CH minute: 0:47

What I'm wondering is that gap between the body cowling and the cab? Looks like your problem may come behind the the cowling. In the 4th picture, the rubber strip between the cab and body cowling seems to have a bit more open space than it should.

I'm not familiar with cabbed tractors. Any chance the something came loose and shifted the whole thing forward? Causing all of your problems.

 

[ericm979]

Is this a new 4720? lt looks like it has a datalogger on it for the DPF (the black box on the battery) so that would make it fairly new. The hood latch is different than my 3725 bought a year and a half ago. My latch is on the frame not in the hood. It's interesting to see what changes over time.

 

[LouNY]

Looking at the manual there seem to be 3 bolts that hold the cowing section to the cab section,
could they have shifted?
Or has the loop ben tweaked back that gets latched?

 

[Cougsfan]

Thanks for the video, Pedro. It looks like my hood is in the right place. I will check the cowling section mounts, Lou. According to the video, the gap between the cowling and the cab look like mine too, but I will check around up there. I am pretty sure the loop has not been tweaked. It is straight and quite sturdy. It would take a sizable force to bend it (like a 16 oz hammer swung under full force) that I would seemingly remember happening.
I don't know what that black box is, Eric. Your probably right. The tractor will be two years old this month. It is coming up on 300 hrs.
This isn't really that big of deal. The hood latches now and I can live with it. What bugs me most is that I can't see what is bent and the issue doesn't seem to make any sense. I will keep looking and check back if I find anything.

 

[Cougsfan]

Stopped by the dealer a few days ago. He had a new 4720CH on his yard. Among the changes; they changed the hood latch mechanism completely. Branson must have noticed they have a problem.