You remembered right, and your lucky day since my 1964 Valiant was easily accessible (no junk on hood). The hood latch has a "torsion spring" around its pivot, as seen in the 2nd photo. Looks like a pretty generic spring, but might have to drill out the rivet-pivot. BTW, for those who studied mechanical engineering (or just thought about springs), a torsion spring actually bends the metal like a springboard, whereas a coil spring applies torsion to the coiled rod similar to the torsion-bars in our Mopars.
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