Paint Code for Bumper Swap

jake241983 · March 14, 2020

Here's the after picture with the color matched bumper and grille installed and the new headlights with color matched bezels and black bowtie emblem on the grille. I'm going to wire the fog lights another day.

jake241983 · March 14, 2020

@silverado2k18 here's a few more pictures from yesterday. Popping the grille off wasn't bad. It's like four 10mm bolts, then some clips on the far right and left you have to pop up and kinda lift up and out. Just be careful not to break any.

jake241983 · March 14, 2020

Once I had my bumper off I swapped the brackets and that plastic bottom piece from the original bumper to my new one. I swapped the u clips as well. It was pretty straightforward. I just laid a moving blanket out and put the bumpers on it and took everything off the one and put it on the other.

Turned out my truck did have the fog light brackets after all. I did have to get some u clips to mount the fog lights into them. They were m8-1.25 u clips. My brackets didn't have them and the fog lights I bought didn't come with them. They just had the bolts. Got the last box O'Reilly's had and ended up having to go to Ace Hardware to get the rest.

After that you just do everything in reverse and you're good. I didn't do the wiring on the fog lights yet. Ran into some snags with the headlights and a broken socket wrench and ended up being 10:30pm last night when I got everything back together. According to the instructions on Gen5DIY it's pretty easy to hook that harness up. You just have to remove the air cleaner to tie into your headlights.

silverado2k18 · March 16, 2020

On 3/14/2020 at 9:39 AM, jake241983 said:

Once I had my bumper off I swapped the brackets and that plastic bottom piece from the original bumper to my new one. I swapped the u clips as well. It was pretty straightforward. I just laid a moving blanket out and put the bumpers on it and took everything off the one and put it on the other.

Turned out my truck did have the fog light brackets after all. I did have to get some u clips to mount the fog lights into them. They were m8-1.25 u clips. My brackets didn't have them and the fog lights I bought didn't come with them. They just had the bolts. Got the last box O'Reilly's had and ended up having to go to Ace Hardware to get the rest.

After that you just do everything in reverse and you're good. I didn't do the wiring on the fog lights yet. Ran into some snags with the headlights and a broken socket wrench and ended up being 10:30pm last night when I got everything back together. According to the instructions on Gen5DIY it's pretty easy to hook that harness up. You just have to remove the air cleaner to tie into your headlights.

looks good. time wise, how long did it take you? that isnt a gm bumper? what does the sticker on the back side of the bumper say? hows the quality of that bumper? easy to swap over the bottom plastic to the new bumper?

jake241983 · March 17, 2020

1 hour ago, silverado2k18 said:

looks good. time wise, how long did it take you? that isnt a gm bumper? what does the sticker on the back side of the bumper say? hows the quality of that bumper? easy to swap over the bottom plastic to the new bumper?

It took me a long time, but I ran into some problems and made several trips to town for stuff. Just for the bumper itself only took a few hours.

Not an OEM bumper, got it from carparts.com

That picture is my old bumper, that sticker is just whatever came on it.

Seems pretty much exactly like the one that came off except with fog light holes. Everything lined up okay.

Pretty easy to swap the bottom. Just time consuming. I laid out a big moving blanket and put the bumpers across from each other and just pulled all the parts from the factory and swapped them over. Nothing much to it, just a couple different sized sockets and there's a few clips that hold the plastic on too.

The only scary part was popping the grille out. It's got clips and it feels like you're gonna break them when you're pulling the grille out.

When are you getting your project going? Heard anything back from your dealer? According to the parts guy at my dealership they sell a kit with everything you need to hook up the fog lights for $290. Then labor for them to install and they program your computer so it recognizes the lights. They put the factory switch in and everything. Did your dealer say anything about that? I hadn't heard of it.

silverado2k18 · March 18, 2020

On 3/16/2020 at 8:33 PM, jake241983 said:

It took me a long time, but I ran into some problems and made several trips to town for stuff. Just for the bumper itself only took a few hours.

Not an OEM bumper, got it from carparts.com

That picture is my old bumper, that sticker is just whatever came on it.

Seems pretty much exactly like the one that came off except with fog light holes. Everything lined up okay.

Pretty easy to swap the bottom. Just time consuming. I laid out a big moving blanket and put the bumpers across from each other and just pulled all the parts from the factory and swapped them over. Nothing much to it, just a couple different sized sockets and there's a few clips that hold the plastic on too.

The only scary part was popping the grille out. It's got clips and it feels like you're gonna break them when you're pulling the grille out.

When are you getting your project going? Heard anything back from your dealer? According to the parts guy at my dealership they sell a kit with everything you need to hook up the fog lights for $290. Then labor for them to install and they program your computer so it recognizes the lights. They put the factory switch in and everything. Did your dealer say anything about that? I hadn't heard of it.

nothing from my dealer. i'm done with them. i would like to know more about this fog light kit. i cant find any info anyplace. hoping to get going in the near future on the bumper swap. waiting for the weather to stay a little warmer here in NY. so, you needed clips for the fog lights bolts to attach to the brackets?

jake241983 · March 18, 2020

3 hours ago, silverado2k18 said:

nothing from my dealer. i'm done with them. i would like to know more about this fog light kit. i cant find any info anyplace. hoping to get going in the near future on the bumper swap. waiting for the weather to stay a little warmer here in NY. so, you needed clips for the fog lights bolts to attach to the brackets?

My dealership is called Ron Ward Chevrolet in Herrin, Illinois if you want to call their parts department. The guy in charge there was the one telling me about the fog light kit when I was in there asking about some of that hardware for the brackets. He said they'd actually done one. I can't find any info anywhere either, I thought that was weird that there was nothing online about it anywhere since it's at least a somewhat common thing people want to do. Unless it's brand new or he was mistaken. I didn't inquire much further since I'd already bought everything piece by piece anyway.

Yes, I needed some u clips to attach the fog lights to the outer brackets. They were M8-1.25 size u clips. At least that's what matched the bolts that came with the Ebay fog lights. I got the last six they had at O'Reilly's and had to get the last two at Ace Hardware. The ones at Ace were $0.95 each. The ones at O'Reilly's were about the same.

jake241983 · March 18, 2020

Got the fog lights working. The Ebay fog lights had different connectors than the Gen5DIY harness, so I spliced the ones that came with the fogs onto the harness. It's pretty easy to hook up. You just take out the air cleaner box and run your headlight connector through the harness and back into your headlights. Then run the red wire to your positive on your battery and connect the fog lights.

silverado2k18 · March 28, 2020

On 3/18/2020 at 1:37 PM, jake241983 said:

Got the fog lights working. The Ebay fog lights had different connectors than the Gen5DIY harness, so I spliced the ones that came with the fogs onto the harness. It's pretty easy to hook up. You just take out the air cleaner box and run your headlight connector through the harness and back into your headlights. Then run the red wire to your positive on your battery and connect the fog lights.

front looks very good. interesting headlight pieces. where did you find those?

jake241983 · March 28, 2020

33 minutes ago, silverado2k18 said:

front looks very good. interesting headlight pieces. where did you find those?

They're the new Morimoto headlights, I got them from Headlight Revolution.

https://headlightrevolution.com/chevrolet-silverado-1500-16-18-xb-led-headlights/

silverado2k18 · March 29, 2020

On 3/28/2020 at 5:42 PM, jake241983 said:

They're the new Morimoto headlights, I got them from Headlight Revolution.

https://headlightrevolution.com/chevrolet-silverado-1500-16-18-xb-led-headlights/

Nice looking, but certainly not cheap!