95 C2500 pancake

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Jermu

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Well, continued with the grille yesterday.
Went ahead and drilled it full of holes, I decided that I'd use 26 bolts, nuts and then 52 washers, one for both sides of the grille and mesh. The bolts I used were 4x20mm, but could've used even 10mm shorter ones for that matter.
I first drilled a few holes here and there, to get the mesh to sit nicely.
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Drill a hole, bolt it up, drill the next hole and so forth
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The distance between the holes was ~100mm, whichever hole lined up the nicest with the distance from the last one, except the middle ones were a 150mm from the last holes, that way I got them closer to each other and had that little wedge in the middle.
 

Jermu

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Then when I got back home (had to drill the holes at my parents' place because, well, I don't have a drill) I started by painting the bolts, nuts and washers black, so they wouldn't be as visible from outside, as from what you can see from the previous pictures, they're plenty shiny behind the black mesh. This was just black primer, didn't get fancy with 'em
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Then when they dried, I proceeded to mask the grille, because the mesh had scratched the inside, and you probably remember the tab I cut off that were holding the old center in? well, they were shining white from underneath.
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I also ran a little masking beneath the top edges, because it was poking out more and I didn't want any slightest black on the topside. Then I rolled the bolts around and painted the other sides. After that I painted the grille sides with black bumper paint, I reckon that was probably the best and most durable paint for this.
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Let that dry, peel off the tapes and at last, final assembly!
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The Chevrolet emblem I had some trouble with attaching, but as I was mocking it up at one point, I ran two zip ties over it, between H and E, and the other one between R and O and what do you know, you can't even see them if you don't know they're there, so I left it that way :Big Laugh:
 

Jermu

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Fast forward to this morning, after classes I tackled the grille swap! The last picture with the old grille:
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The install went rather smooth, mocked it up a few times to see which holes line up where and then transferred the clips. 2 of the lower mounts on the grille do not attach to anything, there's a several cm's between it and the metal. Also the lower middle hole:
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The clip was in the upper square hole. The new grille uses the lower square. Notice the problem? Damn clip's too wide for the hole...
Also the corner lenses either don't fit the grille or the grille don't fit the corner lenses. There's visible gap along the edge and a corner from the other marker broke off...
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Also the facelift bumper filler doesn't fit. Some people say it does, some say it don't, I believed the ones who said it fits. Great. I'm waiting on a local guy rn if he's got one, he'll let me know in a while today if he does. This part I'm really trying to source from Funland, because while the part is real cheap out there in the US of A, the shipping costs an arm and a ********.
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Also I don't have anything to space out the park lights atm, so I used big nuts I found laying around, gotta find a better solution for that along the way.
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But she looks puuuuuuuurrty, I love the new look!
 

Jermu

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Turned out real nice. Well done.
Thanks! Next up on the front end, I gotta find an OEM plate holder and get a short 'n' small registration plate, of course the filler, and then I'm plenty happy! Boy have I been waiting for this since I got the car :D
 
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