fast97maxse

I want to change the grill on my 97 SE
for one without the horizontal bar in the middle.

What year(s) or model(s) have the "plain" grill
and will it(they) fit on my car?

Thanks

phatmax95

iTrader: (29)

by "plain" do you mean the 95-96 grill? i saw a max the other day that looked like a 95 or 96 with the front grill and then looked like a 97-99 on the back..(didnt have that groove down the trunk) ... so i figure if thats what you are talking about then, yeah i guess it could be done.. why u changing?

fast97maxse

The picture in your sig. has what I mean by the horizontal bar.
Yours is chrome. On my SE it is body colored.

The "plain" grill I am talking about has the side bits
that are on your grill (kinda like parentheses)
but no bar in the middle, just the "hamburger"
sitting on some black plastic

I see these on 4th gen. Maxes with the trunk crease.
Don't know what year these are.
It looks like a swap would be simple, but I don't know...

Why?
Because I want to make a custom grill, put in my own material
and I don't want the bar to go across.
I'm not sure if I would remove the black plastic in the middle
or just put the new material over it
(removing the logo first of course).

Maxima97GLE

You are talking about the grills from the 95-96 and no a swap is not easy. The shape of the 97-99 bumper brevents the usage of a 95-96 grill... the 95-96 grill is bigger. You can test this by taking you grill and putting it on a 95-96... you will notice a 1/2in to an inch gap on the 95-96 with the 97-99 grill. Switching it around would make the 95-96 grill a 1/2in to an inch bigger on the 97-99. Same concept works with the stillen SMX grill. You have 3 choices... keep the one you have... get a billet grill like mine ($180 chrome, $160 unpainted or polished)... or do some custom work to your grill.

fast97maxse

gosh darnit to heck

well, thanks anyway.
I believe you, no need to test.

I wonder why Nissan decided to change the size.
Probably just to thwart moders.

I think taking out the horizontal bar
would be far more trouble than it's worth.

I haven't yet, but I plan to shave the rear
and I want to take the burger off the front too.

Guess what I'll do is remove the whole unit
and try to fabricate the piece to fit the "hole" that's left.
That's how a Trenz grill works, right?
Just 4 mounting brackets that use the old support points?

Maxima97GLE

yup

Screaminfast

iTrader: (1)

I'm having custom mesh put in place of my grille...

fast97maxse

"In my Living Room: Stillen V2 S/C kit w/ Blitz BOV"
Wow - so, how fast does your couch go now?

Who is making your custom grill, or are you doing it yerself?

Are you just replacing the black plastic stuff
or the whole grill [the way a Trenz grill works]?

What kind of mesh are you using?

Yellowbrother

i think the one person on this forum that has what ur describing is the grill on unclemax....he did a 97-99 front conversion and painted the cross-bar black....now if ur talking bout a 95-96 grill on a 97-99 bumper then just look at my sig....

fast97maxse

nahh, I'm not talking about what unclemax did -
I'm meaning exactly what you did -
swapping a plain [no bar] 95-96 grill
for the grill with the bar across the middle
[as is currently on my 97].

But, according to Maxima97GLE, there is a size difference
that makes this difficult.

So, how did you do this?
Was it hard?

Also, I don't usually have any problems w/ sig picts
but yours won't show.
I only see the broken graphic thing...
Would you be so kind as to email it to me as a jpeg attachment?
jmlee@modemmedia.com
thanks

Lastly, is your forum name related to your interests as stated in yer profile?

aznbluboy

Yeah Yellowbrother..

Tell us step by step directions on how to achieve that. It looks bada$$$!!

Maxima97GLE

very very very nice yellowbro... i saw something like that on the 97 but as i said before it looked nasty... urs on the other hand looks dtraight up nice.

Yellowbrother

u got mail....maxima97gle is correct...there is a size difference....the main problem is the side...as u can see my 95-96 grill does not go all the way down to my bumper...and the bottom part of the 95-96 grill (where it curves) goes down lower then the 97-99 bumper...what i did was gutted everything in the middle and manipulated the grill to fit...and i don't know how to post pix so i cheated and did an attachment then grab that link to post my sig...ur actually downloading my sig from the org's server...

Sonic

Yellowbro, what a great idea about having the .org be the pic server. Ingenious.

Yellowbrother

hehe

Mr99Maxima

I know i'm hella late to this thread, but I'll post anyways...hehe. I always wondered why the grill was body colored on the SE, and chromed out on the GXE and GLE. I know I wish the SE grill was chrome...of course, this didn't stop me from getting a SE...lol.

RedMax95

Thats how i ended up doing my sig as well, i started the forum about front conversion to post it and ended up getting many replies, i have aol and the stupid thing wouldnt come through, but two days ago i tried it that way and now i have a pic in my sig, its a good way to get around it

fast97maxse

When you post pics that way they don't show up in Netscape Navigator. I got it to work in MicroExp though...

If you really want the chrome grill, a straight, same year for year swap would be real simple.
You might even find somebody willing to trade on the forum.