1996 crown vic clip swap

i have a stock 96 p74. i am going to do a front end swap, just curious if any one has done this. i am going to upgrade to the 98-02 front end. i know the fenders are the same. i have a hood, bumper headlamps,markerlamps, all i need is a header panel and grille. i know i have seperate bulbs for hi and low beams so i will need to end up with one bulb??? any wiring tips? also the rebar for the 96 has a foam absorber and the new ones have the plastic collapseable absorber. any tips would be great. thanks

wow crickets......... well i have the 98 hood installed and painted. i also had to replace the hood latch and release cable. also had to elongate the new latch bolt mount locations to use the stock welded on threads. i have the bumper and header painted i will be swappping them this weekend i will post more pics. .

so i have the header panel and front cover installed. you have to loosen the fenders to remove and re-install the header panel. then the aluminum rebar has to be trimmed about a quarter of an inch on both sides for the new cover to be able to go back and meet flush with the fenders. i only attached the header on the sides the middle has two brackets that do not lineup with the new header and the airbag sensors are right there so i didnt want to interfere with them. the only thing left is to wire from four headlight bulbs to two and from one marker/blinker to a marker and a marker/blinker. it is all easy bolt on. it took me about two and a half hours to get this far.


aftermarket header panel $46
grille aftermarket $19
hood used $40 (white off a p71) steel
oem latch/cable $56
bumper used $35 (was taxi orange)
aftermarket marker lights $13 each
used headlamps $20 each (they required sanding/buffing)
emblem free(had an extra one laying aroud)
napa paint (i dont remember)
napa clear $40
painting (free- in garage)

i finished the swap about 4 more hours of work today. i used the 96 turnsignal/marker light in the new headlamps then spliced off the ground and brown wire for the new side marker lights. the headlamps i used one factory ground and spliced into the power wire of each low and high beam. the grille is 5 or six nuts on top and pops in on the bottom. it came gloss plastic but i sprayed it flat black. i also had a roll of chrome mldg so i installed that around the bumper. the lower portion is supposed to have a splash shield the 1996 bumper had it integrated into the cover. i ran two screws under the cover into the rebar for now so the cover doesnt move while driving. i had to move the hood back some more because it was hitting the new header panel.
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AFTER