having a dickens of a time opening the hood on my 84 300sd. after many minutes with help of friend was finally able to open. thinking my cable needs adjusting as it may have 'stretched' over time. notice there is an adjustment a few inches back of driver's headlight assembly. and by the way i did do a search. to no satisfaction. here is my thought. with hood open, i will remove one of the locking brackets from the hood. place the bracket in the release mechanism. adjust the cable. either tighten or loosen cable adjustment. and pull on release handle until i can remove the bracket from the locking mechanism with my fingers. apologize if i have my head up my duppie for this thought. any help will be greatly appreciated. thank you.

I had a 'stubborn' hood release on the SDL. It didn't want to open until the very last fraction of a millimeter of pull.

In the dead of winter, I used WD-40 to blast a lot of old, caked-on lube from both the left and right release mechanisms. I moved the latching mechanism around a lot, and shot all of the stuff out of there.

It was a lot easier to open after that.

So, for what it's worth, it might will help if you try a good cleaning/lubing before any adjustments. Can't hurt much, and might save some busted knuckles and blue-tinged air...