hi i like the style of the 86 mustangs but i have an 89 and i wondering if i could just switch all the front nose pieces and not the fenders anf the hood?
heres the link to the front nose piece i want to put on my 89
so basically my question is... Will it work w/o any major mods???:SNSign:
Front fenders were all the same from '79 to '93 (except that the '91-93 cars had slightly larger wheel openings). Only difference is the hood and nose piece.
You'll have to find the front part of the headlight harness for the older style car though, and figure out how to connect your headlight harness to it and make it work. They used sealed beam lamps versus halogen bulbs in the '87-93 cars.
I am actually in the process of doing the same thing. I am transplanting 86GT parts onto my 92LX. The fenders are the same up to 90 but beyond thatm the lower fender extensions wont bolt up. I am goint to see if I can just redrill the mounting holes and retain my 92 fenders but I havnt gotten that far yet.
Things you need to swap to make it look right besides the nose piece are...
-hood
-metal bumper under nose piece
-lower front fender extensions and the plastic trim piece above it
-rear bumper and plastic moulding pieces in middle of rear fenders
-all the rubber moulding on the fenders and doors
-optional items are the rear quarter windows, upper drip rail trim, dew wipes and door mirrors. This would also require you to change the inner rear side panels and I believe the back seat.
Oh yeah, I forgot that the beltline trim is different.
Well, I don't think he's trying to turn his car into an exact '86 lookalike...but yeah the trim on the front bumper won't exactly match up with the rest of the stuff on the car.
Does the '87-93 inner bumper not work with the older noses?
As mentioned the belt moldings dont match so that will look different the bumper and the mounts.
IIRC you can use the 93 Cobra fender extensions to match the earlier fenders. I remember reading that somewhere.
87 has a similar bumper mounting setup but different mounts so you need a 1" spacer between the bumper and the bumper mounts. The 87 bumper is supposed to be plastic so its supposed to be lighter as well.
I just completed this exact swap so I have a little more insight on this.
Red_LX asked about the inner bumper...the 86 has turnsignal lights in the bumper and they are actually mounted into the metal bumper not the neoprene nose piece. I enexpectedly found that the bumper mounts from the 86 to the 92 I swapped onto are totally different. The shape of the plates, the bolt spacing and even how far they stick out from the core support. I havn't found a solution yet. I think I may have to cut the brackets off the 86 and weld them onto the 92, unless of course someone has a better suggestion. I tried to ask over at foureyed pride but the mods are some real uptite *******s to be sure and locked the thread.
Headlight wiring is gravy. Same three color coded wires on both cars. I just cut the plugs off the 86 and soldered color to color on the 92 harness. There are 2 ground wires on the 86 setup since there are 2 plugs rather than one but just solder them together. I also converted the sealed beam headlights to housings that take H1 and H4 pop in headlights similar to the later models. I used some of those super white bulbs which are wiched brite. I discovered last night that the stock headlight switch cant handle that, it melted. I will be installing relays this evening.
Moving to the rear....the rear bumper is a pretty direct swap but the earlier bumper has 2 more mounting studs that the 92 for some reason. Options are to either remove the extra studs or drill new holes. The rear side mouldings also are slightly different. The 92 piece had three large studs where as the 86 has 2 plus a small metal stud with this kind of snap bushing thing. You need to drill a small hole for the little stud because it is in a different location than the 3rd large stud on the 92 trim.