98-00 to 01-04 Front End Conversion Build & Write Up

Yeah it was kind of a pain to get them to sit right but I somehow got it to sit well. It was a lot of tightening and loosening to make sure they were flush with grill. But a little bit of time you can get it to work.

 

@WildLand I was wondering if you ever test fit the 01-04 headlights with the 98-00 grill. I just want to know if the headlights would clear the grill. I know that there would be gaps on the top and bottom of the lights, but I'm considering grafting the 98-00 and 01-04 grills together.

 

Good question. I bet if you really wanted to you could. But I bet it would not be worth it. The problems I would see though are:
- mounting of the headlights. The 98-00 are mounted different than the 01-04 and use a different bracket. This bracket makes the 0104 headlights sit a little higher as well.
- the space. the 9800 are bigger and there will be gaps as you mentioned. These gaps would probably not be able to be filled by the 0104 grill because where the gaps are, the grill of the 0104 will not be sufficient enough.
- Don't think it will look good/not much different than the normal. I did a quick mockup below. The corner lights of 9800 are bigger and will not flow (cant use the 0104 lights unless you have the grill). You can see how much gap will have to be filled below the light and looks kind of awkward.



What I would suggest if you want to change the front of your truck without much money or skill is change the front bumper to an 0104. If I knew how good it looked I probably would not have done the full conversion. Just the bumper

 

Thanks for the info!

I'm not concerned about how much work it would take. I am a sculptor and work with a range of materials from metal to fiberglass. I would obviously need to swap the headlight brackets and corner lights in the process. I can see that the bumper filler pieces are different as well.

I'm not so sure the lights would be positioned higher since the part of the 01-04 grill goes around the top and bottom to line up with the same plastic that surrounds the corner lights. Since the 98-00 corner lights share the same space in the fender, it seems to me that the 01-04 headlights would float right in the middle. The part that I'm concerned with is right where the headlights meets the grill in the center. If the 01-04 lights are longer in this dimension, they may end up behind the 98-00 grill.

I'm just thinking about creating something unique, not necessarily practical.

I do agree that the newer bumper makes the front end look a lot better, but at that point I might just go with a plate bumper.

 

True true good points! I did position the lights a little higher. Just a weird illusion because of the hood on the 0104 being higher as well as the corner lights of 0104 having a chrome surround (making the actual clear lense smaller (the same height as the headlight)). But yeah if you can graft the side sections of the 0104 grill onto the middle part of the 9800 then you would have the proper mounting points for the side markers as well as filling the space where the 9800 headlights would be. You can then get the 0104 bumper fillers that attach to the 0104 grill and would fill the bottom space as well.

I can measure the length of my headlights if you want to see if they will fit without going behind the 9800 grill?

 

Yes that would be awesome if you could get that measurement. If I go about doing this it will probably be a slow process, but I will document it the best I can on TW.

 

9.5 inches wide

 

Mine are 10" at the bottom and 9" at the top, It seems to me that it would fit.

 

Yup it should! the bottom is the longest part on mine.

 

Any chance you could update the pics in this thread? This seems to be the best how-to I can find, but most of your pics aren't loading....maybe it's just me?

 

Hey there. They are working for me, still having problems?

 

Must be on my end. About 25% of the pics load and they're always the same ones.

 

Great write up! Welcome to the 21st century!

 

All interested in what it looks like today

 

Nice tires and wheels where u got um?

 

Did everything and bought everything stated in this post but my corner lights won’t sit flush and I gotta push really hard & zip tie my grill on the left side so it doesn’t pop? Wonder if it’s becuase it’s all replacement parts?

 

Pictures?
Make sure you grill is clipped into the radiator support? Also your corner lights clip into the grill and above the grill and screw into the top of it. Do that?
Pics would help!

 

It wouldn’t sit all the way in unless I zip tied it like this. But hey I mean it does the job I guess lol and I really love the 01-04 front end compared to my 98 ! Thanks for the reply tho I thought you would’ve been done with this thread

 

Huh sorry about that! I’ve long since sold the truck or I would be more help right now haha
There’s gotta be something in the way somewhere, not sure what though!
yeah old thread but I’m still around

 

Other than that she pretty now