5 August 2018 - headlight grille mod - passenger side

Heres a pic ot two of the passenger side radiator grille assembly..

5 August 2018 - Corrosion Control

While removing the passenger side radiator grille assembly, I noticed a bit of rust on fasteners and a couple of light buckets.  So I disassembled the passenger side radiator grill and found that the both headlight buckets/holders were extremely rusted(I stripped and painted both in the summer of 2016).  I am looking into doing a better job of dealing with the rust and properly painting the components.

Starting soaking one of the headlight holders in Evapo-Rust.  Once its clean I'll prep and paint it.

4 August 2018 - headlight grille mod - passenger side

I thought I would continue with the mod and start on the passenger side radiator grille.

This grille has major gaps.  The headlight door was scrubbing on each side.  Now that the headlight door has been removed and this mod done, the gaps look pretty bad...

4 August 2018 - Headlight grille mod

Here a few more pics of what I have done up to this point...

Here is the replacement hardware for the headlight door adjuster

Replacement hardware for the headlight door adjuster

Replacement hardware for the headlight door adjuster

Replacement hardware for the headlight door adjuster

4 August 2018 - Headlight Grille Mod

I worked on the driver side radiator grille today.  I removed the headlight door from the radiator grille.  I will be using two spare door hinges for this mod.

On the driver side,  I installed the headlight door ornament grille to the door hinge.  I noticed that because the of this type of mod, the headlight ornament grille will be directly mounted to the headlight hinge.  To make sure the proper distances and aligment of the grilles remains, I had to install some additional hardware.

This is a typical headlight door from a 67 cougar.  The arrows point to the headlight door and the "gap".  That gap must be maintained when installing the headlight ornament grille to the headlight door hinge.

This is a modified assembly.  The headlight door ornament grille is mounted directly to the headlight door hinge.  To maintain the gap that would normally be there, I installed three nuts that are the approximate thickness of the headlight door.  By doing this, this assembly will line up with the rest of the radiator grille.  This is a temp fix to deal with the gap.  Long term fix is an aluminum piece that will fit in that area.

3 August 2018 - Headlight cover/grille mod - driver side grille

I started removing the driver side grille.  I decided to see how easy/hard it would be to remove the grille assembly without removing the lower valance panel and front bumper.

Removal was not that bad.  the biggest hang up is the tension springs.  The springs are a bit of a pain to remove but after that the grille comes out fairly easily.

Well , looks like a bit of corrosion control is due...didnt realize the newer fasteners would rust like that.  I think I will also remove the vacuume motors since I am not going to be using that system anymore

Theres the spring I kinda tweaked, but its ok.  The other parts need to be cleaned/repainted again.

3 August 2018 - Headlight cover/grille mod

I few days ago, I found a set of headlight doors and door hinges for sale.  I now have those parts and I am in the process of cleaning/prepping them for use.  So far they look good enough to use for the mod I am planning on doing.

They look a bit out of shape, but I believe I can use them