OEM Rebel Grill on a 2012 Ram 1500 Big Horn

[sting251]

Hi everyone!

So I have been researching the web and asking dealers, body shop guys, you name it...for the past couple weeks and I still do not have a clear answer. I was hoping you guys may know.

http://www.ramforum.com/threads/rebel-grille-on-a-tradesman.93259/

I read the above thread as well as other similar ones in this and another Ram forum but there was nothing specific in regards to results for the 2009-2012 Ram owners trying this idea out. It does work for the 13's and up but I am aware the shape of the grill slightly changed in 13 (towards the bottom of the outer perimeter).

I did even go as far as to call Ram's support center (not a dealer but the larger corporation) and got a hold of a nice guy named Alex. After explaining everything to him he stated that he was confident that it would work with some minor modifications that any decent body shop would be able to handle. So basically I got a "yes" from Ram but I'm still leery and nervous about going ahead and ordering it because knowing my luck that guy had no idea what he was talking about lol.

I have the standard chrome Big Horn bumper and chrome billet crosshair grill in case that helps and I do not want to get the Rebel bumper. So if there is no way to make this work with my current bumper I guess the whole idea is a no-go.

Also, below is an email I sent to my local body shop guy. They have been giving me the run-around all week so I'm about to give up on them. It describes the whole scenario though in better detail.


------------------------------------------

The 2009-2012 Rams had a particularly shaped outer perimeter of the front grill. In 2013 they made the "slightest" change to that perimeter towards the bottom where it meets the bumper...so slight of a change that not many people would even notices unless you look close up and compare. When the Rebel came out in 2015, the shape of its outer perimeter of the grill was more similar to the 2012 Rams which works in our favor with what I want to do.

I have done some research already and am providing you some links below to help determine whether or not the plan is a go. After looking at that info and contacting someone from Ram to get the height and width dimensions you should be able to hopefully come up with an estimate for me. There may be some retrofitting needed...trimming of the back of the grill or the bumper...perhaps creating some new mounting points...but whatever is needed is cool with me.


Below are all the links to where I would likely get the grill and grill inserts from.


https://www.ebay.com/itm/2015-2018-...INE/322425347203?_trksid=p2485497.m4902.l9144



https://www.ebay.com/itm/Fedar-Fits...rentrq:9c57c2651620ab6b4233aeeffffd61dc|iid:1

-----------------------------------


P.S. If I am able to do this my plan is for the body shop to also paint the grill glossy black to match my truck so that the stock matte black appearance doesn't stick out like a sore thumb

Thank you guys for listening!!!!

Will

 

[sting251]

I uploaded a photoshop that my graphic design buddy at work made for me...this is what the Rebel grill would look like on my actual truck after being painted and after the billet inserts installation.

 

[cuttymcgavin]

That looks sweet!! Anything is possible. My pops owns a body shop and I grew up working there. Just about anything can be done. I am sure this will work for you possibly with a few mods but it is absolutely doable. I built a lowrider with hydraulics in NY which they are not very popular as out in the west coast, just image back in the day somebody said "I wanna make my car hop, go front, back, side to side with some 3 wheel motion!" Well they figured it out!! LOL!! Good luck to you and def put up some pics when done!!

 

[sting251]

Thank you! Yeah man I know anything is possible The problem I am having is finding the right body shop in Pittsburgh to trust to do it. I'm pretty sure the one that I have used for minor dents and dings over the years is not interested in doing this without charging a crazy amount. So before I make the body shop decision I wanted to hear from you guys because I was hoping you all would know how major those modifications would have to be. I figure if the height and width of the two grills at least match then it shouldn't be too bad to retrofit it. Unfortunately I have been unable to find the dimensions of the Rebel grill anywhere to compare it to mine.

Anyway thanks again!

 

[sting251]

Well I took a chance after weeks of research with no clear answers I said what the hell and bought the Rebel grill on eBay along with a set of chrome billet inserts and three amber 194 Sylvania LEDs.

It took this body shop guy I found about a month to do it...but it is now 90% done. The job itself was probably a day of work (most of the working being the painting) but he did it as a side gig while he worked on legit jobs. Anyway, all that is left is the RAM nameplate emblem. He didn't wait for the chrome paint to dry enough and taped it off. Well, when he took the tape off it left smudge marks all over the letters. No biggie though because I found the chrome version of the letter emblem on eBay (same one thats on the 17-18 Laramie and bought it today. It should be in later in the week and I'll have him swap the emblems out. After that it will be good to go.

But here it is...one pic with the lights off and one with them on.

 

[Ravjay12]

How did you get the bottom to fit? How does it attach to the mounting points?

 

[sting251]

While I can't be 100% sure because my body shop guy did it all without me being there (and because I'm not the most mechanically-inclined person to say the very least), the best way I can describe what he told me about how he got it to work would be the following...

The top of the grill matched up fine without issue...mounting points and brackets were a match so no work needed there. Width-wise its the same as the 2012 grill so no trimming needed on the sides or around the headlights.

As for the bottom...yes that is where some of the body-shop skills came into play because the Rebel grill is about an inch or so taller. So...to make it work:

I have the standard chrome Big Horn bumper and on top of it...where the grill meets the bumper is that black (body colored) area. I believe that is just part of the bumper assembly...perhaps a cover. He trimmed the edge of it a little bit so that the bottom portion of the grill would not need as much trimming. He did, however, also trim a little off the bottom of the grill as well. He then got a piece of black painted trim/molding to put across the bottom of the newly trimmed grill so that there were no rough edges showing. You can't even see it to be honest it looks awesome. As for mounting points, he temporarily removed the bottom mounting points on the back of the Rebel grill, and later reattached them in the proper spots to get them to line up correctly on my truck like the stock grill did. He used that crazy-strong adhesive (can't remember the name) that they use to hold windshields in to reattach the mounting points. As complex as this all sounds he said that the trimming/reattaching portion of this job was only a couple hours work and was fairly easy to do if you have the right tools.

The bulk of the labor was for the painting because I wanted the black matte stock appearance of the Rebel grill painted to match my glossy black truck. The other two bigger portions of the labor were for the led bulbs and the RAM emblem. The grill inserts I don't even factor in here because they took him 10 minutes to do.

The bulbs - to get the type 194/168 amber Sylvania bulbs to fit in that very narrow open space above the RAM emblem he had to trim away some of the black mesh from the back of the grill.

For the RAM emblem - he originally tried to paint the stock gray/machine color emblem that comes with the Rebel grill but it didn't turn out well. So I went online and bought the chrome version of that emblem from a Mopar seller on eBay for $56 shipped. The thing that sucked was they falsely advertise (Mopar does) that the chrome emblem (from the 2017/18 Laramie trim) will fit the Rebel backplate on the Rebel grill. It doesn't...not without some trimming. It is actually a little wider than the RAM emblem that comes with the Rebel grill but height-wise it is a match. So getting it to fit nicely was challenging for him but he got it done. He still wants to clean up a couple small areas around the "R" letter so you don't see the rough edges at all. Besides all that it is good to go.

So...in order of amount of work needed ranking from most to least:

1. Painting
2. Emblem swap
3. Led lights
4. Bottom of grill and bumper cover trimming and reattaching of mount points

He said without factoring in the painting process this job took him about 6 hours. When factoring in the painting (sanding, clear, multiple coats, etc) you are looking at about a 10-12 hour total job if you want it to look perfect. This of course did not all happen at once. He worked on my truck a little bit at a time on the weekends over the course of about a month.

 

[BTD07]

Well I took a chance after weeks of research with no clear answers I said what the hell and bought the Rebel grill on eBay along with a set of chrome billet inserts and three amber 194 Sylvania LEDs.

It took this body shop guy I found about a month to do it...but it is now 90% done. The job itself was probably a day of work (most of the working being the painting) but he did it as a side gig while he worked on legit jobs. Anyway, all that is left is the RAM nameplate emblem. He didn't wait for the chrome paint to dry enough and taped it off. Well, when he took the tape off it left smudge marks all over the letters. No biggie though because I found the chrome version of the letter emblem on eBay (same one thats on the 17-18 Laramie and bought it today. It should be in later in the week and I'll have him swap the emblems out. After that it will be good to go.

But here it is...one pic with the lights off and one with them on.


View attachment 129408 View attachment 129409

Based on your photoshop render, I dont think you could have gotten it more perfectly. Nice work!

 

[Ravjay12]

While I can't be 100% sure because my body shop guy did it all without me being there (and because I'm not the most mechanically-inclined person to say the very least), the best way I can describe what he told me about how he got it to work would be the following...

The top of the grill matched up fine without issue...mounting points and brackets were a match so no work needed there. Width-wise its the same as the 2012 grill so no trimming needed on the sides or around the headlights.

As for the bottom...yes that is where some of the body-shop skills came into play because the Rebel grill is about an inch or so taller. So...to make it work:

I have the standard chrome Big Horn bumper and on top of it...where the grill meets the bumper is that black (body colored) area. I believe that is just part of the bumper assembly...perhaps a cover. He trimmed the edge of it a little bit so that the bottom portion of the grill would not need as much trimming. He did, however, also trim a little off the bottom of the grill as well. He then got a piece of black painted trim/molding to put across the bottom of the newly trimmed grill so that there were no rough edges showing. You can't even see it to be honest it looks awesome. As for mounting points, he temporarily removed the bottom mounting points on the back of the Rebel grill, and later reattached them in the proper spots to get them to line up correctly on my truck like the stock grill did. He used that crazy-strong adhesive (can't remember the name) that they use to hold windshields in to reattach the mounting points. As complex as this all sounds he said that the trimming/reattaching portion of this job was only a couple hours work and was fairly easy to do if you have the right tools.

The bulk of the labor was for the painting because I wanted the black matte stock appearance of the Rebel grill painted to match my glossy black truck. The other two bigger portions of the labor were for the led bulbs and the RAM emblem. The grill inserts I don't even factor in here because they took him 10 minutes to do.

The bulbs - to get the type 194/168 amber Sylvania bulbs to fit in that very narrow open space above the RAM emblem he had to trim away some of the black mesh from the back of the grill.

For the RAM emblem - he originally tried to paint the stock gray/machine color emblem that comes with the Rebel grill but it didn't turn out well. So I went online and bought the chrome version of that emblem from a Mopar seller on eBay for $56 shipped. The thing that sucked was they falsely advertise (Mopar does) that the chrome emblem (from the 2017/18 Laramie trim) will fit the Rebel backplate on the Rebel grill. It doesn't...not without some trimming. It is actually a little wider than the RAM emblem that comes with the Rebel grill but height-wise it is a match. So getting it to fit nicely was challenging for him but he got it done. He still wants to clean up a couple small areas around the "R" letter so you don't see the rough edges at all. Besides all that it is good to go.

So...in order of amount of work needed ranking from most to least:

1. Painting
2. Emblem swap
3. Led lights
4. Bottom of grill and bumper cover trimming and reattaching of mount points

He said without factoring in the painting process this job took him about 6 hours. When factoring in the painting (sanding, clear, multiple coats, etc) you are looking at about a 10-12 hour total job if you want it to look perfect. This of course did not all happen at once. He worked on my truck a little bit at a time on the weekends over the course of about a month.

Thanks for sharing and having the courage to be first to do this! Definately going to look into it.

 

[TXCOMT]

Finally...some Rebel grille love! While I prefer the matte black OEM look of my '16 Reb's mouth, I do applaud the OP for takin' it upscale! I even like the LEDs above the RAM lettering. To me, this look beats the new "nostrils" by a country mile.

TXCOMT

 

[huntergreen]

Were the shutters an issue ?

 

[sting251]

Thank you guys for the compliments!!! Really appreciate it I was definitely nervous leaving my truck those multiple times while my body shop guy worked his magic but in the end it definitely turned out the way I hoped. All that for $400 in labor wasn't too bad. The grill itself was $350 new on eBay, the inserts were $50 on eBay, and the amber lights were $6 a piece at AutoZone

 

[sting251]

Oh and nope...the shutters were a none factor. They detach nice and easy from the Rebel grill or at least that is what the body shop guy told me

 

[sting251]

That's a more current pic of the new setup. The chrome RAM emblem has been merged in on this one unlike the last pics that still had the stock gray-ish RAM emblem that came with the Rebel grill. Also, I got some black cab roof led lights installed as well (same body shop guy). They were only $30 on Amazon and he sealed everything up really well so I'm hoping they will last awhile.