Road Runner Nest

Ive got a question for you guys with the 71 roadrunner grilles or 71-72 satellite grilles....

When i bought my 72 roadrunner (clone) many years ago, i discovered that the previous owner had zip tied the center section of the grille down to the bumper itself. I did some research and eventually acquired all the necessary brackets and purchased a hardware kit off of ebay (i believe).



Ive managed to figure out where everything goes, except the plastic "washers" or bushings if you will. Can someone please tell me the correct location/position these plastic pieces are to be installed??



Im pretty confident that one is for along the top of the bracket and the other is for the bottom. But which is which?? One has a larger hole and the other has a smaller hole.

Im also confident that the barbed retainer sits on top of the center grille section, and installs facing down. like so...


Then, im assuming one of the plastic bushings goes in between the grille and the bracket? but even though it looks like a bushing should be there, the barbed retainer doesnt look nearly long enough to me. Another observation i made was that the barbed piece can only fit through the bushing with the larger hole, but is not snug through the hole. And conversly the barbed piece will not pass thru the spacer with the small hole.

Im sorry for the long post, im just trying to provide as much info and details as i possibly can.
Any and all help would be greatly appreciated! thanx

Hey phatdak18,
Those plastic washers snap together on either side of the large oval holes on the bottom of the 3 similar mounting brackets. Here is the diagram - the plastic washer is labeled "spacer" in the diagram. Let us know if this helped you out.
Scott.

Thank you Scott! thats exactly what i needed. it didnt even cross my mind to check to see if those two pieces even connected to each other. I do have a body manual from 72, but it does not show this grille. Im assuming this image came from a 71 body manual? which I was hoping to pick up at this years Nats anyway.

Laterz

Yep, Image came from the 1971 Body Service Manual. Interesting that your 72 manual doesn't have that - because the 72 Satellites used the same grill. Just the 72 Roadrunner got the special cool grill. There are two separate manuals for the 1971 models, maybe its the same for 1972 also.
Scott.

I know its weird right? but here's what is in my 72 body service manual....



Im hoping to pick up a decent 71 manual soon to add to my resources and help solve some of these nagging questions i have haha. thanx!

Try Bishko Books. You can get a hard copy or a CD. I've got both depending on the "mood"
The electronic version is great for zooming in on your PC and printing just the pages you need.

Thanx for the info! ill check it out

Phatdak18, do you remember where you got them. I'll be needing them myself at one point soon.

I bought the grille hardware kit off of eBay. At the time I think there was only 1 guy offering them on there. Also, I believe R/T Specialties offers the correct pieces. Hopefully this answered your question. Laterz

Thanks a bunch

I've got pix of my '72 Road Runner grille to include all the original brackets and hardware. Too them when I restored the car which I bought new, so all the original parts are there. I also have a detailed set of images showing how it goes together.



Don't know if this will help, but if you want them, drop me a PM.

sdweatherman wrote:Hey phatdak18,
Those plastic washers snap together on either side of the large oval holes on the bottom of the 3 similar mounting brackets. Here is the diagram - the plastic washer is labeled "spacer" in the diagram. Let us know if this helped you out.
Scott.

Question as im doing this right now, what size and length are the bolts that are used to bolt the brackets on? Seems to be 12 of them.

To all regarding the 1972 Road Runner Grille.
Here’s an image from my 1972 Body Service Manual that I have made some annotations on.



1. This image is the right (passenger) 2/3 of the grille/bumper. The left (driver) 1/3 was omitted as it’s same as the right.

2. The grille consists 3 pieces: (1) Center section #6 “GRILLE”. (2) Two end pieces #8 BEZEL”. (3) A honeycomb #7 “TEXTURE”.

3. It is held in place on the BUMPER with 7 brackets. (1)There are 3 “C” brackets (labeled BRACKET) but only the center (#2) and right (#1) are shown. There are 4 brackets, two pairs that consist of an upper and lower bracket, that hold the BEZEL but only two are shown (#5-upper and #5a-lower)

4. Then there are what I call the “buttons” (#1a & #1b) consisting of two plastic formed washers in pairs where the center of the lower one goes through the metal “BRACKETS” and fits into the center of the top one. A screw goes through them and holds the grille with screw clips on the “GRILLE”.

5. The #7 TEXTURE is fastened to the #6 GRILLE with screws and screw clips.

6. The #8 BEZEL (right & left) are fastened to the #5 & #5a brackets (right & left) with screws and plastic nuts pushed into the brackets.

7. The “C” brackets are fastened into the bumper itself using tabs on top of the lower part and bottom of the top part.

IMPORTANT...IMPORTANT...IMPORTANT

8. The entire grille assembly can be assembled to the bumper and then put on the car, but I would NOT, repeat NOT recommend doing this. While it is easier since some of the fasteners are, in a word a “sonofoabitch” to get hold of (you MUST use a swivel head gear wrench) with the bumper on the car, the chance of breaking parts of the grille assembly (remember they are worth thousands) horsing around that heavy bumper just ain’t worth it!

Here's a link to a Photobucket album with more pix of the grille, parts, & installation.

http://s118.photobucket.com/user/Joebag ... 20Pictures

A big THANK YOU to 72Roadrunner!. I think all I need now is the hardware to complete mine