I have a silver lariat sport and want to install the base XL grille, I started to remove last night but not as straight forward as I imagined. I know some of you have switched out grilles does anyone have a "how to"

 

removing the grille is not as it appears ive done it on my platinum to do some paint work and the best way to describe it is the grille comes out as a module there are 4 10mm headed bolts across the top they are black and are hooked to the radiator support there not the big push clips you see and you also have to unclip the painted headlight fillers enough to get a silver 8or 10mm bolt behind each filler at that point you will pull the grille with all the supports with it there are also to electrical connectors that run like a set of blinds behind the grille once you get those bolts out you will remove the whole module then you remove the grille of the module the whole process only takes about 20 minutes when you know how to do it hopefully this helps

 

MCR98-

Once you removed the grille module, would that make it easier to replace the headlight assy's if someone changed the complete headlights?

 

you wont need to do all that to replace bulbs or do hids but to change housings you will as well as removing those painted headlight fillers completely which will also require undoing the fronts of the flares

 

Do you mean the fronts of the inner fenders? Thanks.

(I want to change out the complete headlight housings)..

 

Thank you for the details. Did you paint your grille? Can you share some pics?

Thx

 

Thanks for the advice MCR98 it went pretty much as you said. Remove 4 bolts at top of grille, remove all push rivets, remove rubber radiator support cover, remove push rivets at top of headlight surrounds and gently pull loose (I did not fully remove the surrounds, just pulled out far enough to access grille hosing bolts) remove 1 bolt on each side of grille housing pull out 3 retainer pins on each side of grille housing that hold rubber shield, disconnect 2 electrical connectors at top of grille housing, pull out grille assembly to access all other bolts needed to remove grille and ford logo. Go very gentle on headlight surrounds and make sure all retainers are lined up before pushing back. I installed a XL grille on my lariat sport will post pics soon

 

 

This was a little more invasive than I had hoped, but I worked through it without too many problems. Definitely a help having this thread to reference when I couldn't figure out where I was missing a bolt for the damn thing to come out.

 

Grille off