The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Swapping early 50 grille to 54 chevy

Hi. 1st post, and 1st project. We have the frame off now and we're starting the body work, but for aesthetic reasons i'm switching to the early style grille. Anybody else done this before? Do the fenders AND hood all need to be replaced, or just the fenders? Can we fab something or is it a full swap? Thanks in advance.

I'm pretty sure the '54 grille meets the hood and fenders differently, so you will need to change it all out.

That would be correct...at the very least, the '54 fenders are shaped a bit differently on the front(where the marker light area is).

At the top corners of the grilles,,the 54 fender is rounded. The 47-53 fender is squared off.
And also,as mentioned earlier the parking lights are indented into the fenders on a 54.

I made this grille swap 12 yrs ago. The Hood on the '54 does not need to be changed. I put the grille from '48-'53 in my '54. You can change out the fenders to make the job easy. I used the '54 fenders and sunk the '54 parking lights into the existing recesses in the fenders. Using the '54 fenders you have to do a bunch of sheet metal fabrication, such as squaring off the fender openings for the top corners of the grille, welding up a bunch of holes that were for the '54 grille mount. Then you need the bottom splash panel and braces from the '48-'53 grille. That ties everything on the nose together. I took me about a day and a 1/2 and a lot of beer. A week after I did this swap, there was a question in Old Cars Weekly about doing this swap. The response was "don't do it, too much work is involved". I should have sent them a photo of what I did and say "Don't say, don't do it - I did it!"

OK - so the pre '54 and '54 hoods are the same, or is it that it worked fine in your situation?

The only difference in the hoods is where the front hood emblem attaches. The difference is the pre '54 holes are recessed for the emblem screws. The '54 holes for the from emblem are flush. Also there is a difference in where the side hood emblems mount. There are 2 extra holes on the '49 - '51 hood for the "3100" emblem. But the front of the hood and the hood latch assembly are the same.

Thank you for the clarification.

Thanks for all the help. Sounds a bit above our skill sets, so we will try for the swap. Appreciate the info very much.