95-97 to 98-93 front end upgrade.

[rlith]

Well, here's another friendly how-to. How-to upgrade your front end! This will be a running commentary until I get everything together. I know some of you know how to do this, it's mainly for the people that don't.

Parts Needed:

Newer style rad support.
Grille
Headlights
Parking/Blinker Lights
Bulbs (You can use your old ones if you have the composite headlights)
4 Retainer clips for holding the lights assemblies in place (part numbers to come)
7 Grille retainer clips ($.50 cents each at dealer, part # 15002520)
2 Extra fullsize parking/blinker sockets

I bought the grille and rad support from Pa. Collisions Parts (new aftermarket)
Grille cost me $55, rad support $53.00

I got the headlight assemblies from Wagner Autoparts (free) with mounting brackets.

Blinker/parking lights were from APC (diamond clears) from advance autoparts for $39.00. Bulbs included.

You can pickup the oem ones from a wrecking yard. (As well as all the other parts, unfortunatly most of the wrecking yards wanted 125-150.00 for the rad support and 100.00 for the grille)

Here is a picture (more pictures to come) of the grille with the clears. (as well as my big feet) This grille is paintable (also available in chrome) but i've opted to leave it black. If it fades I'll get it hard painted black. I will be using my existing bowtie from my old grille.



Now for disassembly/reassembly.

Prop hood with 2x4 from engine to latch
Disconnect and remove battery! (8mm)
Remove Air cleaner box
Disconnect headlams on both sides
Remove my brushguard. (9/16 all the way around)
Remove grille (5 t15 torx)
Remove air **** vent
Disconnect parking/blinker lights from existing bumper
Disconnect Airbag sensors underneath bumper (for safety)
Remove bumper (4 T50 torx bolts)
Remove fan shroud (7 15mm)
Remove front skid plate (6 15mm)
Remove surrounding fender bolts (keep doors open for flexability) (16 15mm on the fender, 10 15mm on the inner fenders)
Pickup radiator so that the base nubs are out of their rubber grommets
Remove both front body mount bolts (2 18mm)

Now swing the passenger side fender out as far as you can without bending it (bolts in the door jam will be holding it on. Pull that side of the radiator support out and then slide the rest of the rad support out with it. (old lights will still be attached)

Remove all grommets from old radiator support and install on new one.

Install the new rad support in reverse.
Install all bolts that you removed from the fenders but do not tighten. Install the body mount bushings/bolts and hand snug them. It's best to have an extra person to help with the final tightening so you can line everything up properly.


You will see 2 notches on either side of the rad support. These are for the headlight brackets...
The encircled portion is the bracket, the 2 smaller circles are where you attach the retaining clips when you mount the assembly. These go inside the the engine compartment. They hold the top of the assembly in place while the lower slots hold the two protrusions you will note as the bottom of the bracket.



Now once you have locked the headlights in place, carefully lower hood and lock in place. You will need to push one fender or the other to allow the hood to come down properly. (This is where the second person will help).

Adjust things by hand and note the bead of space between the fenders and the hood. You should have about a 1/4" bead from windshield to end of hood.

Tighten the body mount bolts first (Use an impact or a breakerbar). Then while watching your beads tighten down the front fender bolts with that set of bolts installed and locked down finish installing the top fender bolts and wheel well bolts.

Install bulbs in sockets (for my lows I use Silverstars, for my high beams I use 100 watt APC's, 4000kelvin temp, very blue and blinding bright) install sidemarker bulbs

Now, the reason I optioned the additional bulb sockets is because I'm keeping my original bumper which already has the full size bulbs for the blinkers, so I tapped the pigtails off the original top corners to blink alternately to the front ones.

Reattach and align bumper.

Attach the grille clips into proper points. Lean grille on bumper, attach bulbs to parking/blinker on grille. Push grille into place. Attach needed screws.
Reseat radiator
Attach blinkers to front bumper.
Reseat radiator
Reattach airbag sensor plugs
Install battery
Install air cleaner box
Install brushguard (if applicable) Reattach fog lights (if applicable)

Check everything for proper alignment and tighteness. Boom, yer done.

Note: This pretty much applies to the GMC Standard and Envoy head light assemblies. If you get any of the three front ends with the fog light set ups, simply get a fog light switch from the dealer and wire to a fog light harness so it works just like OEM.

More pics to come soon Sunday!

[beyedup]

was wondering what you did to the headlights going from a single bulb to dual bulbs? thanks

[mostizzle]

Quote: Originally Posted by beyedup

was wondering what you did to the headlights going from a single bulb to dual bulbs? thanks

theres 2 hot wires on the passenger side(1 high beam 1 low beam) and 1 ground that you run both grounds from the 2 plugs to. and on the drivers side theres 4 hot wires(2 highs 2 lows) and either 1 or 2 grounds i can't recall, but you splice all the pairs together and the wires from the 2 sockets to the corresponding wires. once you get all the parts in ur hands and you can see all the wires you'll figure it out,its cake