Hey, everyone! New user here and new owner of a '92 firebird. Lovin' the car even though it needs a little TLC. I'm not a fan of the pointed nose look of the early 90's and I'm curious how easily it would be to transfer an 85-90 one over to a 92. Thanks in advance!

 

You can, but you will need the headlight motors, and housing I believe.

 

Headlight motors from an 85-90 model or?

 

You can do it. I just did. The old bumper has four nuts to the fender on the inside for each side and some across the front. I unbolted at the radiator support. Do not forget any plastic push pin reatainers across the bottom.
Though not necessary I swapped out the headlight bucket backing instead of the whole headlight assembly before putting bumper cover on.. Four bolts and the metal top color panel comes off. Then three nuts and separate the arm from the back rising bucket assembly. Bolted the 85-90 style in place and put in the metal headlight bucket. Bolted the top color piece and then the bezel for the 85-90 that I had.
Before the bumper cover can be bolted on the back bumper support will need to be swapped out to the 85-90 style. With the slight differences I found extra nuts for the top two bolts on the 85-90 bumper and new bolts for the bottom two as they were all different from the 91-92 bumper. You will need to swap out your front light harness or lengthen the park/turn signal wires for the relocated front turn signals.
It wasn't hard but took the better part of a day but I was also swapping fenders.
I did not have to change headlight motors as mine matched the ones on the 85-90 light assemblies that I had. Only problem I had was that the 91-92 used a non adjustable stop for the lower limit of the lights and on the passenger side it was down about 3/4 of an inch. I put in the 89-90 style adjustable stop. The driver side was perfect.
Hope this helps.

 

Thank you so much, Phoenix! This will help me greatly. =))

 

Though I tried to be fairly complete I will try to answer any specific question you may have in doing this.

 

Most people who swap front ends do the reverse swap('91-'92 front bumper cover onto earlier year Firebirds), so there are always people looking for the parts to do a complete swap. And you'll have them.

So if your '92 front bumper cover, impact bar, foglights(if gfx bumper cover), turn signals, headlight covers, trim bezels and gfx pieces(if gfx bumper cover) are still in good shape, list them for sale. All these parts are usually in-demand, so you can make several hundred dollars. The gfx pieces, alone, are almost priceless. People stockpile them because they're so hard to find.

And if your front bumper cover is non-gfx, it might even be more in-demand than a gfx bumper cover.

 

Actually... If you go from 91-92 and use an earlier front bumper you should not need to replace the headlights... There are some minor trim things, but you should be ok...

BUT for the record... you go from 85-90 to a 91-92 setup the bezel around the headlights requires that you change that, but in order to do that you have to change the smaller headlight, to do that you need the headlight housing and just about everything else...

John

 

Of course you are right. When I did mine I wanted it to look like it was original so I swapped the light housings and bezels.
I did also find that if swapping to the ealier style bigger headlight bulb that the connector to the buld will need to be changed. I am repinning so I do not have cut wires there. Just one little detail I never thought about. Later I can get the correct harness.

If you decide to swap the rear bumper I found a way to make things very easy with the bumper backing.

 

Wait, so you were able to keep your 91/92 headlights? Did you have to modify them at all? It said you had to swap out the headlight bucket backing... do you mean the headlight bezel? I heard the 91/92 headlights are smaller... did they fit in the new bezel?

Why did you only have to swap out the adjustable stop on one of the headlights but not the other?

Thanks!
Bill

 

How'd you do the rear bumper?