I need to write FoMoCo a letter. Holy crap, the clip design used on the grilles and fog light bezels is an absolute nightmare! I understand that it was designed for ease of assembly and not disassembly, but I cannot think of a worse way they could have designed it. Everything is held by plastic clips and you have to be extremely careful to not break the clips or puncture the bumper cover when removing them. Thankfully, we were able to remove the upper grilles and the fog light bezels without incident. Well, it was without incident if you exclude the required blood sacrifice, but that usually holds true for just about any work done to a vehicle.
Please notice that I didn't mention anything about the lower grille. That thing is staying right where it is. I now understand why aftermarket grille manufacturers recommend cutting the lower grille in order to remove it. However, I do have a backup plan. The reason I decided to leave it in place is because the bumper cover support structure is riveted in place and would require that I drill out the rivets in order to adequately access some of the upper clips on the lower grille. I'm not opposed to drilling out the rivets, but the lower grille seems to be made from a fairly brittle plastic. Rather than take a chance on snapping one of the slats, I've decided to take a different approach. The two solid side pieces are easily removable, so they will be painted along with the other pieces. The center section is going to be sanded in place and Plasti Dipped in satin black. This is the same black I'll be using for the chrome window trim and door handle trim, so it won't look out of place. My painter friend tried to convince me to paint it all, but in the end, I think I'll be happier with the contrasting blacks. If you like the PS'd photo in the first post of this thread, the entire lower grille was left satin black, so it's easy to imagine what this will look like as a finished product. If anything, I may even Plasti Dip over the painted panels.
I forgot to bring the camera for the disassembly process, but we have to take everything apart again to put it all back together, so I'll try to remember to get some pictures when that happens. We're thinking everything will be wrapped up Saturday.
