98 to 04 grille swap

Having trouble getting my corner lights to sit flush to the fenders

 

you have to switch fenders or do serious body modifications to it to make it look right

 

Well I've seen a couple other swaps like this and made it work somehow without new fenders. Its probable I'll need the 01-04 fenders I guess. But I've messing with it as I've had time and it just seems like something is holding it up, from what I can tell it seems like the grille isn't setting back far enough. The passenger side corner light sets a lot closer to the fender as opposed to the driver side

 

The fenders are the same to my knowledge but the mounts might be different.

PM'd.

 

The mounting style is a little different. PM heading back your way

 

STLHarry is your man.

 

Yeah, I saw his thread on the swap he did and it looked prefect. Way better than what I came out with, haha

 

I did a 98 to 97 grille swap (you went the wrong way with the swap ) so if I can be of any help let me know.

I took a lot of pics which can be found in my build thread.

Also - you might want to change the thread title to "98 to 04 grille swap." Don't know if it'll make a difference with soliciting help... but it's killing my OCD

 

Yeah, I'll definitely be checking out your build for the pictures. How do you change the title? I was trying to do that last night but I never found it

 

I think you click "edit" then "go advance"

 

ok, I got bad info then. when I was asking about it I was told the fenders had to be switched.

glad to know that isn't the case, I guess free advice isn't always good or accurate advice.

I may do this swap myself, it sure looks nice

 

You definitely should man, I love it for the most part. Those lights are just killing me though, my ocd kicks every time I see it. I'm almost certain that the grille just needs to be adjusted to make the sit down because it looks like the bottom of the light is being pushed out by something

 

Thank you sir! It has been addresed. Haha

 

maybe you need to swap out the brackets that the lights sit before mounting to the truck or drill new holes, I bet its going to be something simple like that

 

I have been thinking about getting a core support from the 01-04 year trucks. I dont know if I can just buy the mounting bracket for the headlights. Mine was connected to my core support

 

I ewas thinking you could swap them with he original lights

as to the core support im not sure what other things might change like radiator, a/c, horn, and all that so keep in mind (stuff like that may not line right up the same or maybe it will) just be careful you don't create more alignment issues trying to get the lights done

 

When you say swap them with the original lights, do you man using a set of 01-04 mounting brackets?

 

I assume you had the same problem as I did... the holes in your 98 core support are nowhere near the same shape as the headlight mounting brackets.

We had to cut and peel the sheet metal of the core support to accept the brackets of the 97 headlights.

And the thing with our 98 is that the mounting brackets aren't simple metal buckets, they are those gargantuan plastic brackets.

 

The 01-04 headlights fit in the hole in 98 support but they did have a big black plastic piece toward the inside of the grille. I had to cut my 98 headlight mount brackets out and fab my own for the 01-04 headlights. I used self tapping screws to hold my brackets in. I may have screed them down to far out but my grille still fit really well.

 

And you're still able to adjust your headlights?