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New "Mustangs to Fear" grille/lights kit for 67/68 – install and pics

23K views 29 replies 19 participants last post by  Rorin67 
#1 · (Edited)


I have been one of the lucky ones to receive the new Mustangs to Fear custom grille/light kit for the standard 67/68 Mustang nose. The combo looks to be modeled after the original 67 Shelby grille and center lights, with the lights in the middle of the grille and not off to the sides.




Mustangs to Fear - Classic Mustang Restoration and Manufactured Parts and Eleanor Body Kits

As many know, you’ve been able to purchase a Shelby-style grille/light combo for a 67/68 for quite some time, but only if you have the Shelby-style nose. Nobody, until now, has made this assembly for a standard 67/68 nose.

My ’67 has a number of Shelby accoutrements already, and I’ve been desiring a Shelby-style grille/light combo for some time. But the ’67 has the standard Mustang nose. Thanks to Rich and Michele at Mustangs to Fear, they sent one over for me to put on my ’67 fastback that I daily-drive in 36 miles of commuting in Los Angeles traffic.

Here’s a before shot. This is actually a 68 grille. Years ago I only wanted a black grill and only the running horse, but the running horse on a 67 grille attaches to a coral, which I didn’t want.



You obviously have to remove your old grille in order to put the new MTF grille in place.



Years back I upgraded my headlights to halogens and added a weatherproof 4-relay box to my inner apron. One relay drives the low beam, one the high-beam, and now one powers the aux lights in the MTF grille. Anticipating this mod in the future, much of my relay wiring was already in place. If you don’t have this already, you’ll want to use a relay for wiring the aux lights.



The lights that MTF sends with the kit have LED halos, so I wired those up to be ON whenever the car is on. I wired the projector portion of the aux lights to a toggle under my dash.




You’ll need a couple of these light sockets from your local parts store to plug into the aux lights:



Then start your wiring (remember to put some cardboard in front of the radiator so your hands/tools don’t dent in the cooling fins).



The install is very straight-forward. THE MTF grill sits on top of your grille molding, instead of behind it like the OEM grille. The new MTF grille fits perfectly, with virtually no “gaps” anywhere – a sure sign of excellent build quality. There are six attaching points available to use, but I only used/needed two of them, located on the top/middle of the grille, to attach to the hood latch support. The grille itself is pretty stout, so I didn’t feel the need to use all of the attaching points.





I had to “clearance/grind” some of the bottom material off of the support to make it fit, but that’s no big at all (although I clearanced both sides, here’s a shot of the support with one side clearanced, for reference).



Once installed, enjoy!








I had a couple concerns in doing this. First, I was worried that blocking air flow to the radiator would cause cooling issues. In the week that I’ve had this in daily L.A. traffic, I’ve noticed my temps went up only 5 degrees and only for a very short period while on the jammed L.A. freeway. But what this really means is my water temp went from 190 to 195 for about a minute, and then back down to stay at 190, so no big deal at all. I also have a Taurus electric fan, which likely helps with the cooling. Also, there's still several inches of room between the body of the aux lights and your radiator for air to flow.



I was also concerned that the aux lights, which are single beam (i.e. no low/high beam) would be too bright and would blind drivers (and cops) approaching me. This concern is removed for a couple of reasons. First, the aux light beam isn’t all that bright to begin with. Second, the downward sloping angle of the grille causes the lights to shine toward the ground more than your standard headlights. You can adjust them (MTF made adjusting screws) and shimmy them to shine higher, but I kept them as is. My main concern is others seeing me, not me seeing miles ahead, and having a unique 4 headlight setup like this grabs people's attention when you approach.

Here’s the 67 with just the aux lights on (no headlights):



In the end, I could not be more pleased. Thank you MTF for a great product!

 
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#2 · (Edited)
Nice! That came out really good. Those things are bright as hell. I was considering putting hid bulbs on them but heck, that looks good enough.

Message to Mustangs to Fear: How's that 65-66 version coming along? Haha. It's March and I remember you said you might be working on it this month.
 
#8 ·
Thanks everyone!

At this point I believe their priority is to make a 65/66 version. Not sure about an outboard version. Maybe Rich from MTF will chime in here...
 
#9 ·
Years back I upgraded my headlights to halogens and added a weatherproof 4-relay box to my inner apron. One relay drives the low beam, one the high-beam, and now one powers the aux lights in the MTF grille. Anticipating this mod in the future, much of my relay wiring was already in place. If you don’t have this already, you’ll want to use a relay for wiring the aux lights.

Awesome job documenting the install! In this one picture, I see the relays on the right and the MSD box on the left but what is that in the middle with the clear plastic cover... is it a fuse box???

Thanks,
david
 
#11 ·
The tall thing with the clear plastic cover is indeed the water-resistant 4 relay box. The two large (75 amp) relays on the right side of the photo power the low and high speeds of my Taurus fan.
 
#12 ·
PS: Where are you located at? That looks like Burbank.
These were taken by my office in Westwood, near UCLA. Was hoping for a more dramatic sunset, but it was good enough...
 
#19 ·
Good observation!
 
#16 ·
I might be wrong but I think if you were to pass a state trouper at night with those on in Texas, you would get a ticket for not dimming your head lights. This is one of their favorite things to aggravate people about and use as a stop excuse because they think they will catch more people driving drunk. The reason being that they look more like the diameter of standard head lights and less like a smaller fog light or running light. This probably applies the same in a lot of other states.
 
#23 ·
I might be wrong but I think if you were to pass a state trouper at night with those on in Texas, you would get a ticket for not dimming your head lights..
The cops in Texas are fools. There are so many guys with jacked up trucks that are NEVER pulled over.
 
#22 ·
I think the grille alone is around $185 and with the lights it's less than $350. He started a thread and had the price there. I believe the lights are halo and foggies. The lights are suppose to be from a 2005-2008 or 2009. Somewhere around there before the newer models came out. I found a pair of oem fog lights for $100.
 
#25 · (Edited)
Hey Wade - It's not a cable "operated" lock, but just a cable lock. It's fixed to the latch support, then locks into a cylinder bolted to the bottom of the hood up front. When attached, you can only open the hood about 6 inches, which is just enough to slide the key into the cylinder to release the cable. It's definitely not fool-proof, but it's enough to prevent a crime of convenience for anyone just walking by who wants to pull out the hood pins and check out what's underneath. When it's not in use, I slide the metal locking sleeve through a hole that's in the radiator support (as seen in the pic), to prevent it from whipping around.

 
#26 ·
Wiring update: So on two occasions now I've discovered that I'm turning my headlights off when getting out of the car, but accidentally leaving the aux lights on (by not turning the aux lights' toggle switch off). So I rewired the toggle's positive wire to come from the headlight "on" wire. So the aux lights now turn on and off with my headlights, and the toggle allows me (if I ever want) to turn the aux lights off when the headlights are on.

Cheers!
 
#27 ·
Pain in the *** forgetting them on. I did that too on my truck. Always leave my foggies on but headlights off when I get out.
 
#28 ·
That's an annoyance of being used to modern cars (auto shut off). I've left my courtesy lights on several times. Only done it a time or two in the mustang, but my 67 C10 doesn't have the door switch thingies (one year too old for that option) so I have to turn the dome light on/off manually... left it on sooooooooooooo many times...

Love the install. Beautiful car and looks awesome.
 
#30 ·
Thanks guys. I've seen a wiring diagram that uses relays to trigger to a buzzer if you leave the headlights on after turning off the car. Have thought about wiring that up, but other projects always seem to take priority.

LOVE the Guinness ad!!!
 
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