Hardbody Grill

[Islandpath]

Has anyone did a hardbody grill swap? If so, is it easy?

[DavefromOZ]

I think nunya and my1path have both did hardbody grill swaps, not straight forward, but fairly simple.

[GrimGreg]

Yeah, they both have, and someone did a writeup in one of the year specific forums.

[nunya]

Thinkin of makin a writeup today since I'm gonna have m grill out anyway...

 

Edit: I lied, I lost ambition to pull it. Got involved with other things that distracted me.

Edited November 27, 2010 by nunya

[ahardb0dy]

the hardest part to swapping from the pathfinder grille and lights to the Hardbody grille and lights is spicing the sealed beam headlight plugs to the PF wiring. The rest is easy.

 

You need the complete headlight buckets from a Hardbody and don't forget the headlight plugs,pair of sealed beam headlights, and of course the grille and the side corner lights, the hardbody corner lights will fill the gap on the edge of the grille, see my pic's below:

 

 

 

close up showing space between grille and corner light:

 

 

same grille in my old Hardbody:

 

[silverton]

You didn't search hard enough.

 

The pathfinder headlight buckets are built into the composite light, three bolts. Hardbody uses a seperate bucket peice, 4 bolts, with a trim ring that has four screws to hold the headlight into the bucket.

 

Past that, it's just wiring and clipping the HB grill in to place. The pathfinder grill has two screws and three little aligning tab things on the bottom. The hardbody grill has five of those aligning tab things, one each on the headlight bucket piece and the three that the pathfinder grill use and the same five (seven?) funky clips up at the top.

 

The swap is easy! I'm doing it on my 95 SE.

[Islandpath]

Thanks guys!! I will go ahead and get the grill from a friend and do it later on.

[ANDY]

never seen that grille looks sweet what year are they from?

[Northernpathy]

I have to admit that I have never seen that style of hardbody grill with the inner lights either. I have spent many hours looking online at pictures of hardbody's and never seen one. Special order one from Nissan back in the day?

[ANDY]

yeahprobably or some jdm thing but if i ever see one at a JY im going to try to get it

[ahardb0dy]

The grille I have with the lights in it came from a 4x4 shop I used to work at in NY way back in the day, the grille has to be about 20 years old now. My boss bought them from a company that imported them from Italy, have no idea of the brand name, but the lights are made by Carello. I recently spoke to him to see if he had any left as I now need a light for mine and I know he used to have these grilles for a few other vehicles in his store but this was years ago when I was still working there. Unfortunately he said he must have got rid of any that he had left and does not have them any more. So I'm still searching for a replacement light. I have never see this grille in ANY other Nissan.

 

Other vehicles have used a similar setup over the years, the VW GTI is one I know of.

[GrimGreg]

 

Other vehicles have used a similar setup over the years, the VW GTI is one I know of.

Thing is, VW did it stock.

[Northernpathy]

Probably too expensive to do, but it would be sweet to bring your grill to a plastics place so that they can make a mold of it and reproduce it. I am sure a lot of people would buy it. I sure as hell know I would

[ahardb0dy]

Thing is, VW did it stock.

 

I know some of the cars came stock but I know Hella used to make a grille for the VW's also, don't know if Hella was the original manufacturer for the stock VW grilles or not.

[GrimGreg]

I know some of the cars came stock but I know Hella used to make a grille for the VW's also, don't know if Hella was the original manufacturer for the stock VW grilles or not.

Not sure, but stock, the inner lights were Hellas.