Questions About Small Cosmetic Mods | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

  • Register Today It's free!

Questions About Small Cosmetic Mods

BootyDo

Well-Known Member
Joined
April 21, 2007
Messages
217
Reaction score
1
City, State
Baltimore, MD
Year, Model & Trim Level
2006 Limited V8
Hello All,

Hopefully tomorrow this time, I'll have my "new" Ford Explorer! :D

While I'm looking to do some things to it down the road, I was looking for some starting points in regards to the cosmetics. Specifically, I was looking at doing the following:

1) "EXPLORER" Emblem
The truck I'm getting is a '99 Explorer. On the rear of the vehicle, like the others, it has the word "Explorer". I was thinking about removing this and popping on the exact same thing but from a 2002+ model. I like the way the newer trim looks.

My question is if I remove the old word/trim, are there any holes or is it just adhesive? Likewise, if I pop on the word from one of the newer trucks, does that one have any holes or is it just adhesive?

And finally, regarding this question - is the word all one piece or is each letter individual?

2) Beehive Grill
The other thing I was looking to do is to remove the stock outer grill and replace it was the equivalent beehive grill. When I've looked around, the only thing I can find are Billet grills and other more aggressive looking inserts.

My question is: Is there a standard plain black beehive grill that fits into a '99? Like the ones used in later years and also on the later year Rangers.

Example:



Thanks for any input! I'm excited!!! :D
 



Join the Elite Explorers for $20 each year or try it out for $5 a month.

Elite Explorer members see no advertisements, no banner ads, no double underlined links,.
Add an avatar, upload photo attachments, and more!
.





So I'm supposed to go get my Explorer today :D and I've been up for about 3 hours now. I got bored and anxious and I was looking everywhere again for the thing I was referring to for the grille. I couldn't really find exactly what I wanted. But what I'm asking for is something along the lines of this:

Before:


After:


On JCWhitney, I did find this. Maybe I could somehow craft one out of this material and throw on a "Ford" Badge. I was looking for something a bit more structured though. Plus, I'm scared that if I got that material, it might hang flat in the grille as opposed to having that slight arc that flows with the rest of the face.

Any thoughts?

Oh, and for reference/credit, that picture was from the Explorer listed on Wikipedia's Explorer page.
 






My question is if I remove the old word/trim, are there any holes or is it just adhesive? Likewise, if I pop on the word from one of the newer trucks, does that one have any holes or is it just adhesive?

There are no holes on the '99.

And finally, regarding this question - is the word all one piece or is each letter individual?

Individual letters.

Have you considered just removing the letters and leaving it blank? Thats what I did and it looks very clean.
 






Interesting thought on modding the grill like a newer one. Why not just get the newer grill, cut out what you need and modify it to fit. That's what dremel tools were made for.

A friend of mine used some mesh like what you found and I think it came out like crap. The material is flat, you will need to shape it any way you like. But it's thin stuff and doesn't give the grill the right look in my opinion.
 






Aldive, I was thinking about doing that too actually. I had a '99 Mercury Cougar and despited the "Mercury" logo - no offense to anyone here who might have a Mountaineer. I swapped everything off of it and it just looked... naked. I then rebadged everything with the classic Ford Oval, including the European "Ford Cougar" grille and I really, really liked it.

I think I'm going to take it off for just a bit and see what it looks like in the different lights. I know that sounds dumb and all, but I'm one of those people who will like it for 5 minutes and then regret every doing it - ala one of Britney Spears' marriages. ;)

But thanks for the info on the individual letters. If I do remove the old one, I might space them out a bit for my sub box. :cool:


Interesting thought on modding the grill like a newer one. Why not just get the newer grill, cut out what you need and modify it to fit. That's what dremel tools were made for.

A friend of mine used some mesh like what you found and I think it came out like crap. The material is flat, you will need to shape it any way you like. But it's thin stuff and doesn't give the grill the right look in my opinion.

That's what I was scared of. :( The front kind of "bows" with a slight arc and anything that breaks that flow kind of stands out. I think I might have to look into what you're saying about the '02+ Ranger models and a dremel. I'm a little scared of what the degree of the "bow" will be. Perhaps one from an Expedition would do better...

I got to hit me up some junkyards!!!
 






Stic-o's got one. might want to Pm him and see what he did?

NewFront.jpg
 






Sweet Jebus!!! That's sweet!

He's about to get bombarded by my curiousity!

Thanks Froader! :thumbsup:
 






So Stic-O PM'd me back already! If anyone is interested in doing that grille thing, Stic-O made a great tutorial here.

So now it's off to get some new letters - maybe - and go to a junkyard for an extra grille. I don't trust myself with my only good grille. :o

Thanks all!!! :salute:
 






Back
Top