Front-End Installation Guide: S13

Overview:

There have been a lot of questions concerning installation of Silvia panels on a 240sx recently. If you have the parts in your possession, it should be blatantly obvious how they are installed; this guide should serve the members who may or may not even have a car as the basis of the swap who like to dream or plan ahead… very far ahead.

NOTE – I am pulling most of this from memory, some details including bolt sizes will be changed as the information is confirmed, and more detailed pictures will be added as well.

Difficulty – **

Time – 1-4 hours

Cost – parts: up to $1000 depending on options

Tools:

– 10mm, 17mm? socket wrenches
– LONG extension, at least 24″
– short extension
– ratchet
– drill or file (optional)

Materials:

– Silvia fenders
– Silvia hood
– Silvia bumper and support
– Silvia headlights and headlight brackets
– Silvia corner lights
– Silvia grille

Procedure:

Make sure you have your headlights in the “up” position before beginning. This is not necessary, but can provide better access to the bolts you need to remove.

You will begin by removing all of the body parts on your current front end, starting with the hood. There are 4x 10mm bolts holding it to the hinges, with the hood propped, remove them and lift the hood clear of the car.

You should now have access to the 10mm bolts on the top of the fenders. There are several, so remove them and set them aside being careful not to lose any. At this point, you should be ready to get to the nuts holding the bumper to the fenders, these can be tricky as they are obscured, but it is possible to remove them all using just an extension. You can also cheat and use a universal if you’re a pansy.

Now find the bumper support. It should be attached to your frame by some very large bolts, these may be hard to break so use of PB blaster or your favorite penetrant is authorized. After your bumper is detached, give it a good yank to free it from the car.

Now you get to deal with the headlight brackets. Begin by unplugging the harness for the motors and lights. Move them to the side, and make a visual inspection of how your brackets are secured. They should come off after the 10mm bolts are removed, and with them the headlight assemblies.

Now you can see where all the bolts holding your fenders on are located. There should be a couple up front, 2x per side under the body just in front of the doors, and one in the door jamb you will need the long extension to access. Pop them off and save them for later.

For your reference:

With all your body parts removed, you should see something similar to this:

Congratulate yourself, if you reached this step it hopefully means that you actually have a car and the Silvia front end and it’s ready to install!

Installation is the reverse of removal; start with the fenders, then the headlight brackets, then bumper support and bumper to fender attachment, and hood; lights and grille are last.

The headlight plugs from your car will plug into the socket on the Silvia lights without modification.

For more detailed information on the headlights:

Bulb types.

Using headlight motor system to operate fog lights.

Wiring dual projectors to light simultaneously.