67 and 68 Barracuda grille interchange

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Princess Valiant

Princess Valiant

A.K.A. Rainy Day Auto
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Ok, I need someone who knows 67 and 68 barracuda grilles real good to chime in.

Its my understanding that everything is interchangeable except the inserts.

So if I have a 67 setup and change the inserts to 68 inserts then its a 68 grille setup and vise versa.....Correct??
 
The aluminum surrounds are the same and the outermost flat vertical support. As an entire unit they will interchange physically.

But the two middle vertical supports on the 68 that the chrome surround bolts to are slightly different. The 68 plastic insert is sandwiched between the chrome surround and vertical supports. The vertical supports are riveted in.

The narrow inner 67 vertical support at first look like the 68, but it's a little different in shape and hole location.
 
67 has a wide steel piece that supports a heavy pot metal park lamp fixture.
In the 68 that fixture is all plastic so it doesn't have the support and does have a chassis ground wire to the lamp sockets.
 
If you don't mind having to drill a hole or two, you can get them to work.

The 67 inserts were more verticle and horizontal, and the 68's were horizontal.
 
Rani, while they appear very similar they are different. The center grille supporting brackets, aside from the extra on the 68, are wider then the 67. They don't line up to be able to fasten the 68 centers to the 67 surrounds. If you can find 68 supporting brackets maybe from some wasted grilles the surrounds can be modified to work. See pictures...
 

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Yes. I convert 67 headlight bezel to 68 regularly. You can not go the other way though. To be done properly I use a hand press to concave the hole to be exactly like factory. I think I need more bezels lol
 

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Rocky_JS said:
Yes. I convert 67 headlight bezel to 68 regularly. You can not go the other way though. To be done properly I use a hand press to concave the hole to be exactly like factory. I think I need more bezels lol
Click to expand...

It's an addiction. I guess a few of us may need help. lol
 
It's been awhile since I installed the '68 grill in my '67. I combined pieces from the two different years. As I recall I drilled out the factory rivets where the upright supports attached to the outside frame so that I could switch from the '67 pieces to the '68, reposition them and replace all of the broken off studs.

View attachment IMG_4357 (1280x853).jpg
 
The 67 brackets after putting them together will work the grille mountings holes need to be elongated and an additional bracket needs to be installed (67 will work) and holes drilled in surround to add bracket. You will need to make a support for the market light. The third picture shows the difference between the 67 and 68 brackets.
 

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I put the 68 plastic baskets in my 67 grilles. Kept 67 lamp fixtures and every thing else though. The plastic was broken anyway so I cut it to fit in the 67 frames.

If I had a wealth of parts to play with I might attempt a 68 "SAVAGE" grille.
 
Here are some 67's for a customer. He wanted black surrounds (69-S type) instead of the standard argent. With the grille bezels highly polished like the surrounds. I think they came out very nice with a little custom thrown in.
 

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How about headlight bezels with a screw attachment on the underside of the top of the bezel in the corner? What would this be correct for?
 

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tons of great info .....I have a car with a complete 67 grille setup and I was hoping I could change the inserts and add water and have an instant 68 setup. But it looks like this is going to get involved so I might as well leave it be since it is complete.
 

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What you have there is a 68 header panel that might have rolled off the line with the 67 grilles in it. I bought a 68 in 1986 that was identical.
 
RedFish said:
What you have there is a 68 header panel that might have rolled off the line with the 67 grilles in it. I bought a 68 in 1986 that was identical.
Click to expand...

the headlight surround is dead soft alum., not stainless--------jfyi
 
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