89 Grill swap

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TQS335

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Can anyone tell me if I can put a 94 style grill on my 89 with non composite headlights (the 4 separate ones) I would like to retain the separate lights. Thanks.
 

MrPink

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Yep as far as I know it bolts up. You will need the matching lower trim piece(the painted part under the grille)
 

HotWheelsBurban

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Does the bumper stick out farther on the 94 up? I seem to recall reading on here that it does, and the brackets are different because of this.
Maybe someone who's done this swap can chime in? I know on the Holden Suburban they do use the quad sealed beams, and the grill looks like the 94 up Chevy grille with a Holden emblem that fits over the bowtie.
 

618 Syndicate

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Does the bumper stick out farther on the 94 up? I seem to recall reading on here that it does, and the brackets are different because of this.
Maybe someone who's done this swap can chime in? I know on the Holden Suburban they do use the quad sealed beams, and the grill looks like the 94 up Chevy grille with a Holden emblem that fits over the bowtie.
Yeah, but they're all upside down in that part of the world....
 

someotherguy

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The accurate response: yes, the quad lamps will work with the newer grille. Both generations of grille (88-93 and 94-up) are designed to work with both styles of lights, quad and composite.

However, to update to the 94-up grille you still need to change all the associated parts which have been detailed in a nearly uncountable amount of threads here and across the interwebs. And yes, that means 2 of the bumper brackets (the inner ones), the lower grille filler strip, the corner filler pieces, and blah blah. Your 89 core support may not have the holes for the plastic nuts and almost surely does not have the slots for the tabs at the end of it but these are things you can modify. You also will need the park lamps and corner lenses specific to the 94-up grille and the corners are different GMC/Chevy.

Richard
 

HotWheelsBurban

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The accurate response: yes, the quad lamps will work with the newer grille. Both generations of grille (88-93 and 94-up) are designed to work with both styles of lights, quad and composite.

However, to update to the 94-up grille you still need to change all the associated parts which have been detailed in a nearly uncountable amount of threads here and across the interwebs. And yes, that means 2 of the bumper brackets (the inner ones), the lower grille filler strip, the corner filler pieces, and blah blah. Your 89 core support may not have the holes for the plastic nuts and almost surely does not have the slots for the tabs at the end of it but these are things you can modify. You also will need the park lamps and corner lenses specific to the 94-up grille and the corners are different GMC/Chevy.

Richard
Good, I did remember that right! And it probably has been covered in lots of threads. But it seems to be easier for people to ask a question in a new thread than search for it in the forums.
 

someotherguy

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Good, I did remember that right! And it probably has been covered in lots of threads. But it seems to be easier for people to ask a question in a new thread than search for it in the forums.
Well, what I meant was the details behind swapping from old to new style has been covered a lot, but people always leave out important details. Just sticking the 94-up grille filler strip underneath doesn't work.

As far as asking instead of searching, unfortunately, this is the way of forums. It makes me chuckle though when I see people moving away from forums to facebook groups, which are nearly useless, have very poor discussion threading, and search absolutely sucks on them.. I imagine eventually the groups will be nothing but people asking the same stuff over and over.

Richard
 

Eveready

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Since I recently resurrected this thread and out of respect to @someotherguy who is one of the best resources on this forum. Here is a pretty good thread on this topic complete with a video link that I recently added. Please report your experience. It really was difficult to get all the info on this together.

 
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