How Do You Remove the Front Grill on 2006 Explorer Limited???

I have all the screws/plugs removed, but the grill is surrounded by clips that can not be compressed to pop through the cutouts they are seated in.

DO you just force them apart? Special tool(s) needed?

Well, I don't know if I missed an obvious answer to the above question, but I broke several clips off the stock (Limited) grill in the process of removing it.

The answer may be to take the grill and wrap around body colored side moulding off in one piece, which may (or may not) give you more ability to manipulate the clip areas. I did end up putting the new grill (Eddie Bauer version) back on to the surrounding body colored moulding while they were both off the vehicle, and I remounted it in one piece. Much easier going on than off. What a nightmare. Should'a just paid the dealer to do it!

In any case, I do believe the Eddie Bauer grill looks much better on this truck than the stock Limited grill. I would show the before and after pics if I knew how to attach photos to these posts. My profile says "You may not post attachments".

you need a little bit of webspace, RPR. There you place your pics and use the "insert image"-tag to add the url where the pics are.

If you have no webspace anywhere available, just mail them to my adress and i´ll load ´em up on a peace of my wespace for you to show them. But I guess webspace for free is available at several providers in the states, isn´t it ?

become elite and get all types of storage for pictures

-Drew

I would love to see the before and after.

I prefered the Eddie´s grille too. Normaly, I had ordered a V8 XLT with additional EddieBauer-grille - but anyone must have been as stupid as a peace of bread ( guess my dealer ) and shipped an Eddie instead of my XLT...

I prefer the EB grill as well

OK...let's give this a try. Here is a link to the pics. I couldn't figure out how to attach the pics to the post.

Unfortunately, the lighting in the before pic is a bit better than the after pic, so try to look past that and let me know which you guys prefer. Thanks!

Link to Before & After Pics

rpr said:

OK...let's give this a try. Here is a link to the pics. I couldn't figure out how to attach the pics to the post.

Unfortunately, the lighting in the before pic is a bit better than the after pic, so try to look past that and let me know which you guys prefer. Thanks!

Link to Before & After Pics

Click to expand...

Very nice, I will say this thou, i think I like the cross-bar for the lower grill better on the old grill than on our EB grills...

Question, the part of the grill that lines up with the bumper reinforcement, is it unbreakable plastic or just regular ***ile grill stuff?

Not really sure if I understand your question, but the entire grill seems to be made of the same material. As far as I can tell, it all appears to be chrome sprayed over plastic.

This is really not what I expected. Is this what most automotive chrome is these days?

it´s same kinda chromed plastic like the grille on the first gen´s was.

Then its safe to say it may break easily?

guess it´s depending what you do to it - hunting reindeers using your X´ will damage it more easily than a lite bump on a parking area.

I think the actual plastics are more durable than 15 yrs. before, but it´s plastic - it breaks, just a matter in which case.

As long as it passes the light parking situation I am fine.

has anyone figured out or know the proper way to remove the grill? according to this thread the only way to get it off is to break the clips?

The only thing I can suggest is removing the grill with the wrap around body colored molding it is attached to all in one piece. You should then be able to flex the very soft body colored piece to pop off the inflexible grill.

RPR since you did the conversion on your limited why no do a tech writeup so that others can learn from your wisdom.

Because I am unconvinced that I did it right. I ended up breaking several clips off the stock grill that I took off. I also didn't take any pics. Sorry.

yea that sucks unfortunately i need to put the grill back on so breaking things off of it really isnt an option. Anyone else have any experience removing the grill from the '06?