Grill Cowl - Advise Needed

[WBCook]

I have been working on the laid back grill & cowl and need some tips on how you finished this installation. I have attached a photo of the problem area, which is the Grill relief depth of a 1/4" and the fiberglass cowl thickness which is maybe 1/8". The kit has small rubber bumpers, however, we have found that these are way too short to actually support the fiberglass cowl flush with the grill.

We will need to source thicker bumper pads, then trim them to fit our application...My question is where did you source the bumper pad material?

After fiddling with the fiberglass cowl, my current thought is to add some 1/8 aluminum flat stock at the base of the grill trough, so that the fiberglass is lifted and supported at the intersection of the grill and the cowl, allowing a more flush fit and that the fiberglass would not flex or work over time.

Since, we are not running a hood/side covers or fenders the other issue at hand is the headlight installation. I would like to rigid mount the head lights to the radiator support brackets and not support them just using the fiberglass cowl. However, the threaded headlight assembly bolt setup seems a little on the short side. Thoughts?

[edwardb]

Can't help too much since my truck build does have a hood and engine sides. Which does help a little to position that cowl piece. And headlights on the fenders. But two responses: I've purchased multiple sizes of bumpers from https://www.mcmaster.com/bumpers/. FWIW, I struggled with the fit of the cowl to the grill quite a lot until I trimmed it to fit. As received it didn't fit very well. That's pretty normal with all the fiberglass parts. But this one made a big difference. Good luck.

[Sbda4]

I agree with Edwardb, it takes time to carefully trim the fiberglass cowl to fit the grill, but it can fit nicely. I used rubber bumpers purchased on Amazon. I recall using 5/8” tall bumpers at the top, then used thinner bumpers on the sides.

166192

[WBCook]

Thanks for your responses and reminder that Amazon and McMaster are always a good resource.

Once the Grill/Cowl has been finished I will post a few photos and describe my approach/solution.