Broken hood latch cable

Hello all, and thanks to all for the wealth of information -- very helpful.
As I was preparing to add windshield washer fluid to my '98 Windstar, the hood latch cable broke (about 1/2" of frayed wire remaining on the end of the plastic handle) and I cannot open the hood. The broken cable is too far inside the under-dash cowling to grab with a pair of pliers. Since the weather here this time of year makes outdoor repairs difficult (no garage) I'm likely looking at taking it to a garage. Anyone have a rough idea how much $ this will cost? And is there a way to pop the hood latch through the grille without further damaging anything, so I can add that washer fluid & keep an eye on other fluid levels until I get the cable replaced?

Hi
list on the cable is about $29.50 at Ford. I have changed one before on an older Ford vehicle. It was not a big deal, but as you say getting the hood open was the challenge. On that vehicle ('87 Tempo) I was able to unlatch the hood from the outside via trial and error.
I might suggest removing the kick panel trim where the handle was attached. You may be able to get better access to the cable and cut away some of the outer sheath and use vise grips on the exposed cable.

Good Luck

Thanks busboy4, maybe if the weather improves a bit I'll pick up a cable from the dealer & try it myself. First I'll see if I can get the trim removed so I can access the cable end.

I have a 95, so I can reference it. If you look thru the grill at the hood latch, you'll see the cable going to it near the top right. Just below it there is a small hooked lever hiding behind the body of the latch. I tried pushing a screwdriver down on mine and vwa la it popped and I could lift the hood to release the safety latch!!! Good for me to know too! I also looked inside at my hood latch pull and found lots of cable easily visible behind the cable anchor that the pull stops at. Maybe some plastic trim removed would help, but why bother if you can pop the hood from outside.:)

Thanks tripletdaddy, I'll have to check that on a day where I get out of work while there's still daylight outside -- if it might be that simple I may put off getting the cable replaced.