3rd gen grill on 1st gen retrofit

I had been hoping to do this one day after getting my 1st gen. I bought the 3rd gen TRD grill off of Craigslist for cheap and finally got around to retrofitting it to my 1st gen’s grill surround. I’d say it came out pretty awesome. I will upload more pics during daylight and also will provide pics on how I made it happen.




Here’s how it came out! Definitely need to update the rest of the front end now. Planning to color match the chrome bumper accent and also respraying the faded part of the bumper and giving the plastic a fresh black coat.


A lot of back and forth cutting came with doing this. The tools I used where a dremel, grinder, jigsaw, and a soldering gun.

You first separated the trim of the grill from the assembly by using a dremel with a cut off wheel or grinding stone and going away with all the tabs that hold the two pieces together.



the picture just shows some of the tab locations but they’re all around the edge of the grill.

How I made the new bumper fit had a lot of cutting involved little by little making sure I didn’t cut too much. You have to work from the inside of grill trim as you cut the new grill, and pre fit it each time you make a cut.
You will need to re-use both sides of the previous grill. What I did is I made sure I cut, leaving as much surface area on the pieces to be able to bond to the new grill and I also did not cut the parts that hold the whole assembly on the truck itself.




After cutting and fitting multiple times it was time to bond the pieces all together.
I cut zip ties in even pieces, used the soldering gun to melt/bond them in place, and then used JB weld bonding glue to finish it off.






Using the same openings on the two side pieces that came off the old grill, I used the JB weld glue to make sure the grill was secured.





Now that everything was secured I did a final hole on the bottom of the old trim and new grill and zip tied them together.
The whole assembly is now held on the truck by the two side pieces that connect just how they did with the oem grill and the two screws that hold the side markers on.

Let me know what you guys think

 

Really looking forward to seeing how this looks and how easy it is to do.

 

Let’s see some pics!

 

Looks badass

 

Oh nice!!! I need to see this thing installed

 

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Where’s the picture???

 

I think it looks good. Color match will make it look even better like it suppose to be that way. I’d like to do a satoshi grill for mine then color match it. I have the same color red tacoma.

 

Come on OP!!!! Pics installed!!!!

 

Nice set up! Post some more pics please.

 

Hmmmmm.....that is an interesting idea.

 

Here’s a pic that I took yesterday. I like it more and more everyday. I had installed new headlights and corners also and it just made the truck look way newer than a 2001.

 

Great minds, think alike!! I love the way it looks and it sure turn heads.

 

Do yall know of a cheap 3rd gen grill online somewhere? I'd like to experiment with this a little.

 

$100 is about average, surf Craigslist and something usually comes up.

 

hell yea!! Looking good man!

what suspensions, wheels and tire set up are you running?

 

New Front Grill Replacement Compatible with 2016 2017 2018 2019 Tacoma,Including SR5,SR,Limited,TRD Off-Road, TRD Sport,TRD PRO Grille Black(Including six letters) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B087319N4R/

 

I'm still rocking an old Toytec set up with dakar rear leafs, I ened up adding 2 extra leafs from some Chevy leaf packs because it didn't have the payload I wanted. The wheels are 16x8 FN five stars, wrapped with 285/17r16 goodyear wrangler MTR's

before the grill and sliders:

 

Looks great. Add some retrofits to that front end!

 

Can you still reach the hood release or do you need to modify it some how?