Gen2 to Gen1 front clip conversion

[ONEWYR]

Let me start by saying that when I went outside I had every intention on starting my half doors, but when I got outside I figured I would go ahead and trim my fenders like the guy did on BII.org he did a pretty good write up on it so as I started to take the fenders off I started thinking I got this much off whats a few more parts so I decided to go ahead with the gen1 swap.
So far I have everything unbolted all the harness taken loose all that remains is drilling out the 20 or so spot welds and then the gen2 clip is off. Now I am not sure how others have done this swap but I am removing the inner fenders from the firewall not just taking the core support. I already have the Gen1 clip ready to go in just waiting on getting the gen2 out.
I also started to layout the cuts on the fender cause I am gonna trim them before I install them they will have a pretty wicked cut on them getting rid of a lot of metal.
in some of the pictures you will see blue tape I plan on cutting from the tape down meaning after the cut has been made the tape will still be there.
I should have it back together by the end of the week I will take notes and pics incase anyone is interested in the swap.

[blazinchuck]

sounds awesome! Heck yah...keep us posted. Were getting alot more BII owners over here now! Thanks for posting the job up our site,Chuck

[trkbilder]

Looks great. I'm interested in going the other way, I'll do what you do but in reverse.

[ONEWYR]

I'll have all the parts if you wanna come up to chesapeake va and get them you can have them

[ONEWYR]

Today I made some good progress I got the gen2 inner fenders and core support removed and got the gen1 put in I still need to finish bolting the inner fenders to the firewall. When i finish bolting the inner fenders on I will need to address the radiator mounts and trim the fenders before i bolt them back in. i didn't take pics of the inners and core support back on because it looks just like the first pics I took if it doesn't rain tomorrow I will finish bolting the inners back in and do the rad supports and start securing the harness back in place I figure i still have another couple of days and the conversion will be complete.If you do this swap the way I am by swapping inners it is pretty straight forward the biggest pain in the ass is the fact that you have to drill out about 50 spot welds and that is no exageration. here are some pics of all the sheet metal removed from the front.

[ONEWYR]

I didn't get to work on the truck yesterday but today I got off work early and started in on reassembling the front end. I got the inner fenders bolted in and then I took the plastic wheelwells and trimed those and bent them up and screwed the trimmings to the inner fender I will get pics tomorrow cause that is a bit hard to imagine. I had to get the radiator supports relocated for the 4.0L radiator, and then mount the trans cooler I got the cooler plumbed and the radiator all hooked back up. I got all the wires put back where they belong and noticed something cool about all the lights up front on each side of the truck there is a total of 3 light sockets 1 is the head light 1 is the front turn signal and 1 is the side marker light out of the 3 the only rewire i need to do is the head light the plugs don't match up but the other 2 the sockets from the second gen lights will twist in to the gen1 light housings this is cool because now I don't have to rewire all of the lights. I found that i am gonna have to adjust the amount of sheetmetal that I am planning on trimming so it doesn't look stupid if I trim it as much as I had originally planned you will see some of the core support and I don't want that. all I have left is to FINISH hahahaha

[ONEWYR]

I put another 5 hours in today and I am pretty much finished all I am lacking now is 1 spring for the passenger side head light and some coolant. Oh yeah and to fix the harness that I hit with my sawzall I cut through like 3 wires in the bundle so I threw my hands up and said I need a break. anyways here are the pics
here is a pic of how I screwed the plastic wheel well to the inner fender

this is one showing how I mounted the trans cooler

this one shows how much clearance I have since I trimmed the fender


this one shows how I trimmed the lower trim to match the fender

this one is just a pic of the front you can see that i don't have the headlight in cause I seem to have lost it .

I plan on going to the parts store to get the spring and coolant later on. I still need to finish the bumper and rewire the on board air and while I am at it I am gonna go ahead and wire up the lights that sit under the rear bumper.

[DeTowman]

hock: Man that looks GREAT!!!!! What part Chesapeake do you live? I was through there the last 2 weekends as my parents live in VA. Beach..

[ONEWYR]

I live right off of I-464

[JunKeBluB2]

NICE JOB....I need to do some more cutting on my B2 every time one wheel is stuffed max on a hard turn the tire pushes the fender out at the door an inch or more.