Help with Grille Swap (1 Viewer)

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084runnerltd

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Jan 16, 2013
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Location
Williston, ND
I received my appearance package grille and attempted to install it today to get rid of the chromy grille.

The first few steps are easy….

1). Remove a bunch of clips and remove plastic cover.
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2). Remove 3 bolts fastening the grille down
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3). Disconnect hoses attached to the grille
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4). I removed the Lexus logo and disconnected the sensors, installed in new grille.

5). Spent the next several hours trying to figure out how to remove the grille…..sucks being the guinea pig. The top of the grill is loose, but the bottom is very snug.

-I removed about 30 bolts underneath the car, all 10mm, but all different lengths and thread pitches…not much progress there and not sure if it is even needed….

-I removed molding around a front wheel, in case the whole bumper has to be removed, but in addition to crazy clips that I have never seen before, several of the body panels are glued to each other 🤦🏼‍♂️

-Here is a pic of the clips that attach various panels, however, there is no access to them with your hands….only room to slide in my phone between some slates in the grille.
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I can mange to figure out how the clips work, but they are inaccessible.

Additional hurdles:

A). 1/2 down the front of the grille is a solid piece of molding preventing access to the lower part of the grille (preventing me from finding connections points.)

B). Access from under the pig is also blocked with several pieces of molding.

Does anyone know if the entire front end has to be removed to swap the grille?

Anyone have a schematic of connection points?

I was planning to make a DIY, but am pretty frustrated now and don’t even know where to start tomorrow…..press my luck and just starting pulling down on the whole front end, hoping it is just snapped together and risk damaging the bumper….Or Possibly get out the sawzall and cut out the original grille….🤬

Of course the kicker is that it is a new (and not cheap ride) so I am trying not to break things….

Any help or insight is appreciated.
 
I would say purchase a euro TIS subscription, something like $4 for an hour of access
 
I would say purchase a euro TIS subscription, something like $4 for an hour of access

That would have been good thinking, unfortunately, I threw in the towel and am having a body shop deal with it.

It didn’t look too difficult, but I was scared I was gonna end up breaking so tabs or worse…
 
That would have been good thinking, unfortunately, I threw in the towel and am having a body shop deal with it.

It didn’t look too difficult, but I was scared I was gonna end up breaking so tabs or worse…
Don’t worry, they’ll break it for you 🤣
 
If you use the new grill as reference, can you tell where else there may be attachment points and clips?
 
Snapped a few pics when I picked the car up over lunch….Sorry they are so poor….there were people around and I didn’t want to look crazy.

Bodyshop charged me 325.00 for the grille swap and swapping the trim around the fog lights.
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If you use the new grill as reference, can you tell where else there may be attachment points and clips?

Yes, well, you can but you need the whole front end off the car off. The bottom of the grille attaches via clips to the white trim piece under the black grille.

The slates are too small, believe me I tried, to disconnect the clips while leaving the bottom trim on the car. As a result you need to remove trim around wheel wells, fender flare things, about 15 bolts under the car and then remove the entire front end. From there you can remove the clips and swap the grille.

Had the slates been wider or if it was attached differently at the bottom of the grille, it would be a 20-30min job.

After I had all of the above removed I got paranoid while using my trim tools that I was going to break something…decided to put it back togeather and bring it to the bodyshop.

When I asked the owner how the project went, he said, “Well, we didn’t break anything but it was a decent amount of work.”
 

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