Well after a month or so of collecting parts, waiting for parts to be painted, and finding time to do the swap and CF Hood, it has really fallen apart. Pics will be posted at the bottom.

To start, the CF Hood was great, the latches were wonderful. it rained, the screw rusted, I now have to fix that.

My old washer reservoir had a thick yellow gunk in the bottom, it clogged the pump and washer nozzles. I replaced all of it, it works now. Unfortunately the yellow gunk leaked onto my passenger side marker light bulb holder, and whenever I try my turn signals or hazards, I blow a fuse. wonderful

My center bumper retainer arrived in the mail today... bent, but only all the additional brackets were so I could bend them back sorta. just a little pissed it arrived so beaten and poor looking. I get all my headlights off, all the retainers and whatnot, grill, bumper and I go to install the new bumper.

First, was the cutting of the tabs on the top of the bumper, wasn't so bad. Had to cut for the fogs too, again not too bad. Fitment, was a pain. Have no idea why either, just was. Took the fog lights out, and it fit wonderfully. So I've concluded 95/96 fogs do not fit the 97-99 bumper, they are much too large. and when the bumper is centered, the brackets are not. The p/s side bracket results too far left, and the d/s just about right. Also the mounting tabs for 97-99 headlights -> grill are different, the 97/99 grill is wider. With a little pushing and shoving it stayed on, but its too high, so there's a gap between the bumper. AND the stock latch won't catch because the grills too high. fortunately I have latches on the sides that keep it on while i work on a solution.

Oodles of problems, no fogs, bad fuses, bad wiring, bad fitment. ugh and to top it off I still need to fix the ground causing the Crankshaft position sensor CEL

-----Anyway for the real reason you came to the thread, the pictures:

The Shop


Naked Max


Testing 1


Testing 2

 

Finished (sorta) product:







I can't get over the gap in the grill grrrrrr

 

Sounds like everything went wrong......are we related? "NOTHING IS EVER EASY"

 

well anyone could have told you the 95-96 fogs wouldnt work with the 97-99 bumper if you would have asked. looks good though.
question:
When they installed those latches, any reason why they couldnt install them striaght instead of angling outward like that? I wouldnt be abel to deal with that. Little things like that drive me nuts.

 

Yeah the fogs are a known fact, this is unfortunate,

but it does look like a 97-99 i like it, but whats wrong with the headlights ? why did u not swap them too, one seems more clear than the other.

 

looks like your missing the rubber gasket that sits against the top of the headlights. It should be attached to the hood.

 

They are aligned with the center of the headlights making a line with the washers. I like it like that, they gave me the option before they did any cutting. idk I'm weird like that.

The p/s headlight was shattered and the d/s was fine, so until i get up more money, only one headlight was purchased to make the car functional. But yeah, ones brand new, the others 12 years old.

Probably, idk, I never noticed something like that before.

 

Will 97-99 mounting hardware for the fogs fit the 95/96? or am I just out of fogs period?

Also, did anyone run into the problem with the grill or is it because I didn't swap the headlights too?

 

Quote:
Originally Posted by JSMax
looks like your missing the rubber gasket that sits against the top of the headlights. It should be attached to the hood.







you can see a small strip on top of the headlights.




other wise it looks good, i dont get wat gap u saying..... i got the sam little gap between the bumper and the grill...

 

for the 97-99 foglights, will they bolt on to the same locations as the 95-96? Or do you have to buy a 97-99 peice to let you do that?

 

i'm wonderin why that gap below the grill is there. i remember back in the day when i wanted 95-96 grill on my 98 ppl were talkin about shaving the mounting tabs. never really took a look but maybe you could figure it out. cefiro front end conversions ftw!

 

Same location, you'll just need a different mounting bracket. 95/96 brackets don't sit right and won't fit a 97-99 fog light housing.

My gap is a little bigger than yours, and keep my hood from closing, so I really need to work on it haha

 

Your out of fogs until you buy a set of 97-99's.

 

alot of this stuff is in the stickies.

it really doesnt look bad though. You'll probably want to get some 97-99 headlights for the grill to fit right. Personally, I think the clips for the grill are ****ing rediculous. I have broken every single one I had and they are such a pain to remove.
I'm not feelin the hood pins either, especially the way they are tilted or whatever flava was saying.
I didnt install my windshield washers because one of them leaked and it caused some water "etching" in my OEM hood and I wasnt having that on that CF hood.
also..yes there is a rubber gasket/trim that lines the front of the underside of the hood, you have to drill many many holes for the clips that hold it in there. I just used the rubber strip as a template and went to work.

youve made progress man...KEEP YA HEAD UP WORD.

 

Thanks, yeah I think I'm gonna buy the fogs. I checked out the stickies, but I must have just over looked the fog problem =/. And the clips, lucky for me, they just popped out instead of breaking as I tried to put them in. My washers are ok, and I think I might go with some CF eyelids. I'm not even sure my car ever had that rubber gasket thing on top of the lights, I'll check old pics though.

I'm really not happy with the recent work of this body shop, especially if I did have the rubber gaskets. The screws are rusting, after 2 days, there's still marker on the hood from where they lined up to cut for the latches. They didn't transfer the heat shield, I installed that the other day and had to drill about 6 holes for it. tsk tsk tsk

thanks for all the feedback, now to fix this turn signal issue -_-

 

Love the hood,carbon creations right?

 

right

10 chars

 

things cud be worse, work in your yard next time man.

 

Oh I would if I could. City living, couldn't get the car into the yard if I wanted too... Yards not much bigger than the car either haha


Things are better now, just had to cool down. 4 hours of frustration under the sun takes its toll. once I walked away for awhile, and came back, everything started going in the right direction and things worked themselves out.