Chevy Grille Swap - Front Clip Conversion

'74? '79?

Our grille conversion will...        read full caption Our grille conversion will give you the info on what’s needed to use either an older or a newer grille, but in this case we put a ’73-’74 grille on a ’77 truck. The first step is to unscrew the plastic grille, which should be held in with about eight Phillips screws. You’ll also end up removing the headlight buckets as well as the header panel, center vertical support, and side grille brackets. It seems metric bolts were phased in about 1976 or 1977, so make sure you have a 10mm socket before you start.

We couldn’t find any...        read full caption We couldn’t find any junkyard trucks newer than 1976 that didn’t have a cable-release hood latch. Our cable had broken, and we wanted to eliminate it for safety—but you may want to add one for security. Either way, the two latch designs require a different header panel. The striker on the hood also needs to be changed to match the hood-latch style. The bolt pattern on our hood was the same, so it was no big deal. We also found the external hood-latch handle was located in a different place for each grille style, which is what prevents easy swapping of ’73-’74 grilles with ’75-’76 units. The chrome trim on the header panels are removable via 3/8 nuts on the back. Strangely, the holes were drilled in different places on the ’74 unit we used, but we were able to slide the studs on the trim to make them line up properly. There are two designs of chrome trim, ’73-’78 and ’79-’80.

Another difference between...        read full caption Another difference between years is where the horns are mounted. It’s an easy deal to drill two new holes per side in the ’74 header panel to make the ’77 horn brackets fit. Why’d they bother changing stuff like this from year to year? An emissions stocker on the header panel can help you identify vehicle years if you’re confused.

The vertical center support...        read full caption The vertical center support is also a different shape to clear the more sunken-in ’74 grille—the ’77 unit is on the right, the ’74 on the left.

The ’77 uses these side...        read full caption The ’77 uses these side brackets to support the grille, but they can be easily unbolted. It would be tough to retrofit them to the core support of an older truck. The core supports for the ’73-’76 trucks we saw had nonremovable grille brackets at both sides of the radiator. Swapping them onto the ’77 would require changing the entire core support, so we just skipped it and hung the grille with fewer screws. The ’73-’76 grille brackets didn’t look like they’d get in the way of installing a newer ’77-’79 grille.

The ’74 grille needs...        read full caption The ’74 grille needs to be screwed to two bolt-on side brackets that are mounted close to the headlights. We took the brackets from the donor vehicle and found that our core support had dimples where the holes needed to be drilled to mount them.

All the ’73-’79...        read full caption All the ’73-’79 grilles we saw used small, white, nylon bushings for the grille screws to thread into. Most of ours were brittle, stripped, or missing, so collect a handful while you’re at the junkyard.

We’d heard that interchanging the grilles among ’73-’80 square-front-clip-style Chevy trucks is a simple bolt-in deal. Just choose the grille you like best and swap at will. Wrong.

That’s what we learned when a project that began with a broken hood-release cable on a ’77 Chevy resulted in a swap to a ’74 grille. During the junkyard tours that ensued, we found out a lot about the different components used for the first three versions of grilles on these trucks: ’73-’74, ’75-’76, and ’77-’79. We couldn’t find a junked ’80, so that’s where our info dries up. We also won’t swear that Chevy didn’t use more configurations than what are shown here—in fact, we know ’77-’79 grilles came in three different colors, and there were two different styles of headlight doors. So there may be variations, but this story will at least let you know what to look for if you’re in the mood to revamp your ’73-’79 ride with an older or newer grille. We used junkyard parts for the swap and spent about $42. You’ll have to do the same since all we could find that’s still available new are the ’77-’80 grilles, headlight doors, and chrome trim around the grille.

Converting from a square front clip (’73-’80) to a sloped front clip (’81-’91) is also popular, especially if you like the small rectangular headlights on the ’88-’91 Blazers and Suburbans. That swap is more complicated since it involves changing the entire front clip, including the fenders, inner fenderwells, hood, and core support.