(0:00) Hey everybody, this is Brandon from Sparksmith. Today I'm going to go over a quick installation (0:05) tips kind of guide for the 2014 to 2015 Chevy Silverado Plug and Play Grill Bar Kit. (0:13) So something I've finally finished working on and for now this is going to be the process.
(0:20) You know, if you wanted to use what we provide, you can always take the DIY approach (0:24) and source just some flat aluminum stock like this, when it was flat of course, (0:28) and make your own brackets or however you'd like to do it. This is just how I decided to do it (0:32) using just some very basic tools, which I'll go over how I made the brackets first. (0:38) All you really need is, you can do this, most of this you could do with your grill on the truck.
(0:46) It will probably be easier with it off the truck, honestly, but you know, you do you. (0:52) So our DIY kits come with either 16 or 24 inches of this half inch wide, 16 inch thick (1:01) aluminum stock. And what I've done is, I've cut this down into probably four inches or so.
(1:08) I'm going to do to make basically one of these, this little u-shaped bracket, (1:19) is we're going to measure in, just kind of stick that in there. And you're just getting a rough (1:24) idea of about where you want the back end of this to stick in, just far enough to kind of (1:32) create a hook. So you see, you don't need much, just needs to create a little bit of a lip (1:36) like that.
So you want to extend the metal past the back of the grill by just a wee bit, (1:42) and then roughly mark where it meets the front edge of this black plastic that's in here. Let (1:53) me see if I can get a better shot. All right, so if you look at where the black plastic meets the (1:59) chrome, you want the metal bar to turn upwards at a 90 degree angle and essentially be right (2:09) where it is.
And we'll get to how to do that in a second. So I made a couple of scribe marks here, (2:15) and again, this isn't going to be super precise, not yet. So your lower scribe mark, it's going to (2:21) be about, when I measure it with a ruler, it's about an inch and a quarter from the edge to your (2:26) bend mark.
And you want some sort of pliers or tool that has a flat jaw on the inside, (2:36) and then you get that onto your bend mark. Again, you can just eyeball it, or you can use a square (2:43) and square this off and make sure it's perfect. It just depends on how precise you want it to be.
(2:50) It's completely up to you, but for the demonstration purposes, we're going to kind of eyeball it and say (2:56) it's not perfect, but it's good enough. Yeah, it's definitely off a little bit, (3:00) but you get the idea. You make a 90 degree bend.
Now, I know just from doing this a couple of (3:07) times that it needs to be about the width of this tool, which is, hold on, it's about half an inch, (3:20) because the bar is three quarters of an inch wide, and the tool is about the same width (3:27) as, I know this strip's a half inch, and so I know that the, (3:36) I know that this face here needs to be about half an inch, which equates to a half inch on the (3:43) inside of the bend. So if you put your tool so that the next bend mark is at half an inch away (3:52) from the first bend mark, and just take that and fold it over, (3:59) just do it by hand, and then kind of line them up, and you can, you can adjust it at this point to (4:06) kind of get everything a bit more square. And again, for the purposes of what we're doing here, (4:12) that's plenty.
And so you end up with this kind of shape, a little j-hook looking thing. (4:18) Now, the next thing you'll want to do is take that, and when you bend it, you want it to have (4:26) a taper, because the grill, the opening of the grill tapers just like this shape. So you want (4:31) to have it taper just a little bit, and you drop it in there, and then you take, and this part's (4:39) kind of important, your grill bar.
These kits will come with 14 inch bars. Take your bar, (4:46) and put the bracket roughly where you want it on the grill. Again, it doesn't have to be perfect.
(4:53) You want to line your bar up with the bracket, so that the bracket is sitting up against (5:01) where the wire comes out of the grill bar. And so you take that, and you kind of slide it into (5:09) place. And this is where some of the little details start to matter, if you want it to fit (5:18) correctly.
Now, again, we talked a minute ago about where the black plastic meets the chrome, (5:24) and you can see that there's a little bit of a lip there, and you want the grill bar to sit (5:31) on that lower lip. So you want it to sit down onto the chrome, so that it's up against that black (5:37) lip on the lower portion. And that part's important.
Make sure it's on that lower portion, (5:43) and that it's nice and tight up against the bracket here, and then against where the (5:49) black meets the chrome. All I'm going to do is take my scribe, and make a mark, (5:56) so that I can see where to drill the hole. Because the hole's not going to be centered (6:03) top to bottom, and it's not going to be centered left to right.
So in order for it to sit properly, (6:08) you got to put the bracket in, mark your hole, and then pull the bracket out. (6:18) Now, the next step will be to... where are we? I've marked my hole. I'm going to go drill this out, (6:26) and then I'll be right back.
Okay, so I've got my hole drilled. The hole here that fits the (6:33) screws that come with these grill bars is a number 43 machinist bit, which is 0.089 inches (6:44) in diameter. So a number 43 bit is the exact size hole you want to get a perfect fit.
So it's 0.089 (6:53) inches, and I can get you the fractional equivalent if you want something that is (6:57) close enough from a standard set from any of your local hardware stores. (7:00) So the next thing is, you want to set that in there, and locate one of the little black screws, (7:09) the little black screws that come with the kit, and get that guy started into the hole we just (7:18) drilled. Award-winning cinematography right here, I tell you what.
Appreciate y'all following along (7:28) with my rigged up nonsense, but the good news is that it does work. So snug that screw down into (7:37) your bracket, the U-shaped bracket that we've made, and you want to make sure that the bar (7:42) is down against this black plastic where it meets the chrome. Then you want to flip the grill over, (7:51) and this is the part where having the grill off the truck would obviously make it easier.
(7:55) Now you know the exact depth that this bracket needs to be for the bar to sit where it needs to (8:01) be, and so you just make a little score mark just like so. You can actually, if you've got some (8:10) extra, you could. There's nothing saying you can't, although it's better to have a more rigid surface, (8:16) I think, but you could go ahead and kind of bend one of them.
You're not going to have enough, (8:23) you know, if you had a really long piece, you could bend it however you want to do it. The (8:27) goal is to end up with a piece that's shaped like this, so you know, you can use your pliers (8:33) or if you've got a small bench vise or something like that, you can take the bracket that you've (8:41) made. If you bent it like I did, you'll have to push it through the back, (8:47) and then we'll take this and the two marks that I made, (8:51) the scribe mark there and the scribe mark there, I'm going to bend these up (8:57) with my pliers.
Again, super simple. This is not a complex (9:06) rocket surgery brain science operation. I'm just making some aluminum brackets here.
So (9:14) now you've ended up with something like this. You can take, if you've got some tin snips (9:19) or something to just lop off the excess. One thing you'll want to note is you see how the hole is (9:27) kind of to one side and down.
Remember, like I said, the location of this hole is actually (9:32) quite important. So what I do with them is I mark them on the back side so that I know which way (9:42) is up. And I know that since I'm working on the passenger side, that is the right-hand side of (9:50) the vehicle.
So on the top, I'll mark it with a little R. So I know this is the right side bracket (9:57) and I know that this way is up. Now what you'll do is, like I said, trim off a little bit of excess (10:04) on these, make a second one for the right side, and then repeat the process for the left-hand or (10:14) driver's side of the vehicle so that you'll have two that look just like this and two that will (10:21) essentially be a mirror image where the hole will be over here, right? Because it's off center. (10:30) So you want another two where the hole is off over here.
And that's just so you have (10:36) a good mounting surface without interfering. If you made it symmetrical, one, the bar wouldn't (10:43) sit correctly in the opening, and two, you would end up impacting this wire because this stuff is (10:50) so wide that if you put it right in the center, you can see that you would be impacting where (10:55) the wire comes out and that wouldn't work very well. You'd end up damaging the bar and it may or (11:01) may not be covered under warranty.
So you need that offset hole both to the side and down a (11:08) little bit so the grill bar sits where it needs to and the bracket sits where it needs to. So I'm (11:13) going to go trim this up and then I've got actually a set of four here. So now we've got the basic (11:19) idea of how this bracket is made.
I can show you how the actual install of the bars on the grill (11:26) goes. Thanks. Okay.
This is on the part two. This is assuming that you've made all four brackets. (11:32) Like I said, I've got two, there goes that one, two lefts and two rights.
The right ones, you can (11:38) see the arrow pointing up because your hole is not centered vertically nor horizontally. It's going (11:44) to be offset to one side to clear the wire and to make sure the bar sits where it's supposed to in (11:51) the opening. So once you've got your four lefts or your two lefts and your two rights, (12:00) basically, you're going to come in from the back side of the grill.
(12:05) This is going to be a little tricky to show you, but earlier I talked about how these will kind (12:12) of taper because the opening is bigger on the front than it is on the back. It tapers down as (12:18) you go into the grill. So in order to get the bracket in there, you just take a screwdriver (12:27) and you kind of pry it open just a little bit and the bracket will just slide right in there.
(12:34) So now the bracket's in there. It's hooked to the inside of the plastic (12:40) and then you'll take your bar and you'll seat it (12:51) down like we talked about and then you'll drop the screw a couple of times (12:57) and maybe you'll bitch and moan about it or maybe you won't have fingers made of butter like I do (13:05) and you'll actually hold on to the screw. Oh boy, I hope this is entertaining for somebody.
(13:11) Um, all right, so (13:15) and if you started your screws before, they should just thread right in. (13:20) Don't over tighten these because you will strip out the aluminum. Then you'll have to (13:24) make a new bracket.
So just get it snug enough right in here and then it can't come forward (13:32) because it's hooked and it can't go backwards because the bar is screwed into place and it's (13:35) sitting on this black plastic lip and then you repeat that process right out here on the other (13:43) end and repeat it on the other side and you got your grill bars mounted and once they're mounted (13:49) you literally just plug them up. I would show you the harness but I don't actually have one (13:54) with me right now. Anyways, the point is it's a harness.
You unplug the factory headlight (14:00) and put our harness, so you unplug the factory headlight, put our harness in between and then (14:06) there's a little extension that comes off and plugs into this guy and that's it. You're done. (14:11) So if we make the brackets for you, you can slide them into place, screw it in.
The install is going (14:18) to take you maybe an hour. If you have to make the brackets yourself, um, you know, it's a couple of (14:23) bins. It might take a little trial and error.
We'll send you plenty of aluminum if you want to (14:28) go the DIY approach, but that's the approach that I took on mine. Again, the important bits are to (14:36) do the u-shape first and then get the depth correct so that you can get these little (14:42) locking ears in the correct place so that it sits the correct depth in there so that this bar sits (14:48) flush against that black plastic lip and make sure that the hole is offset so that you're not (14:56) impacting the wire as it comes off of here and so that the bar sits correctly down on this bottom (15:02) lip. So it's got something to rest against all the way across because if you don't, it's going to (15:07) twist and get sucked probably at highway speeds into the grill.
Um, so you want to make sure it (15:14) sits nice and flush. So there you have it. That's kind of a quick and dirty.
Maybe we'll revisit (15:19) this when I get enough people complaining that this is a crappy video. Uh, but if you like it, (15:23) then that's great too. What do the kids say these days? Like and subscribe.
(15:30) Enjoy and email support at sparksmith.com if you have any questions. Thanks y'all.