Any gotchas installing the CarriageWorks billet grill?

I received a 3 piece CarriageWorks billet grill for Father's Day/birthday. It is the one that requires cutting out the stock grill. I am looking for advice from others that have installed the cutout style grills. What is the most difficult part of the job? Anything I should be careful of? I plan to install it this weekend, weather permitting.

Thanks in advance...

 

My aftermarket grille required cutting out the center of the factory grille also and using the outer frame to bolt the new grille into. It's not hard to do. Just unbolt the whole grille assembly to work with it. I used a "sawz-all" to cut the plastic center out. It was pretty easy using a good sharp blade. Good Luck and enjoy the new look of your ride afterwards!

 

Thanks Rockstar. I am sure it will be a bit nerve racking cutting up the existing grill. There is no going back at that point...

 

Take pictures as you do it. Post them on here with instructions. Sit back and enjoy getting the reputation as an enabler of others!

 

So here is the 3 piece CarriageWorks polished billet grill installed. It took us 2.5 hours to install it. It was not as traumatic cutting up the stock grill as I thought it would be. We took our time so as not to make a bad mistake. I used a hacksaw to cut out the bulk of the grill center. I then used a dremel to smooth out the cuts. I painted the aluminum radiator brackets black so they wouldn't show through as bad. I think it turned out well. I am going to go searching for the hood scoop piece. I haven't decided if I should bother with the lower grill piece since the bull bar covers that area up fairly well. Sorry, 007Tacoma, I forgot to document the install like I did with the offroad lights. We were half done before I remembered...

After we finished with the grill on my truck I helped my boy install a Dukes Of Hazzard air horn (actually made up of 5 separate horns) on his Chevy pickup. OH MY GOD that thing is soooo loud. I wouldn't want it on my truck but it sounded pretty authentic. It took us almost 5 hours to get the horn installed...

 

Good job on the grille! Nice looking front end. Yeah, cutting the factory grille isn't too traumatic, you just have to take your time to avoid messing up the outer frame. I forgot to mention about painting the radiator supports and brackets behind the grille, sorry. Glad you noticed it and painted it though, it makes for a nicely finished final product. I didn't realize how much I was going to see behind the grille til after I did the work so I unbolted the grille and did the painting. I would say go for a hood scoop grille piece too, but I'm biased because I did it with mine. As for the lower, that's a toss up, it's pretty much covered with the bull bar, but I can see that you would notice a difference if you did the lower in billet too. But again, I'm partial because I did lower also, but I don't have a bull bar......at least not yet......