1989 R2500 to early grille swap.

[awallspdx]

So I have a ‘89 R2500 (C20) crewcab but I’m not a fan of the grille. What would it take to swap to a ‘83-85 or a ‘86-87 grille? Just not a fan of the “newer” look. Can I just Gina grille and light buckets and re wire or do I need more?

Thanks! I’m new to square bodies.

 

[Vbb199]

Rad support,grill, lamps, harness, trim.

Fenders and hood stay.

 

[awallspdx]

Rad support,grill, lamps, harness, trim.

Fenders and hood stay.

I’d the rad support different? I only see two listed, single and dual ‘81-‘87
Was the ‘88-‘91 rad support really different since they are actually square bodies and I have to search out different years to actually find parts.
Thanks again

 

[bucket]

Man... that grille just looks so good with the US Forest Service green paint though...

 

[RecklessWOT]

I agree, the newer "modern" grilles that were slapped on the '89-91 squares to try to make them look more like the GMT400 pickups that were out at the time look very out of place and cheesy to me. '83-'84 stacked light grilles look the best IMO, though the '85-'87 grilles still look much better than the later ones. I know the rad support is different on the round eye trucks, I wasn't aware of there being a change post '88 though it doesn't surprise me, totally different grille style probably had different provisions for mounting and trim and lights. I would assume it would be easy to rig something up without swapping the whole support, but honestly that's just a wild guess. Doesn't appear to be like a show quality truck or anything so even if zip-ties or self tappers were involved or something I bet you could easily get an older grille on there as the rest of the sheet metal is the same.

 

[awallspdx]

what do you mean it’s not a show truck?!? JK. Yeah it will get used for what it is. Good call on the self tappers. I’ll be on the look out for a decent deal on the parts needed for a ‘83-‘84 or anything up to ‘87. I like the idea of having the center stripe paint matched ( assume this was a Silverado trim level thing)