Since I actually stumbled across this site looking for help with this problem, and didn't find what I was looking for, I thought I would do the next person a favor:

I recently did a repair on my son's truck after fender bender that got the driver's side corner including fender, turn signal, headlight partial, header panel partial. The Repair was in phases as he raised money and parts shipped. The fender was first, easy job. After ordering and receiving early build date headlight assembly and turn signal, I made the decision to replace the header panel.

The Header panel that was advertised to fit the early build date including the correct ohc engine sizes(which convinced me it must be right) looked drastically different even in the pics. When I received it, I determined that it was an advertisement error. It actually was for the previous body style, and presumably the confusion in the minds of the manufacturer and/or distributor was caused by a heritage model? I could find no correct item from that distributor, and another source displayed the same pic for the early build date. So I reordered the later build date, determined to make it work. It did, after I bought two later build date turn signals, snapped the new headlight out of its backer assembly and snapped it into the header panel, and repeated the process for the existing headlight on the other side. Fortunately I was able to get refunds for the parts that would not work. In fact, they even told me to just keep the incorrect header panel.

 

Early build date for 97 model is Jan 96-June 96.

 

Later found the appropriate header panel for about twice the price. By that point, I was too far into the process of changing over to later style.

 

Well since 97 had two different body styles, and i assume the one your working on looks like the 98 and newer bodystyle why didnt you just order parts for a 98? Instead of going through all that confusion

 

If he does have an early built 97, a 98 header panel would have still needed to be adapted to fit.

 

The early build date 97s are different only in the header panel and headlight assembly/turn signal assembly. The Grille and fender are identical. Visually when all the parts are in place, there's no difference. The idea was to buy only the parts that were destroyed, so that's why I tried to stay original. Plus, I had forgotten about the Heritage model, and even if I hadn't, I would have expected the parts for it to be labeled along with the 92-96 body style, which also carried through 97 at least on the F250 and F350.

The Reason for this thread is to make it clear to the next person that there are two ways to do the repair, and that the actual headlight fixture will work either way.

 

These should have been posted first.

 

Don't laugh... I missed that included in the screenshot�� now how do I delete?

 

Screenshot not working out for me....sorry. Anyway this gives some idea of the process.

 

These brackets are not needed with the later build dates.

 

Originally, the fender was also crumpled. The top pic shows the truck after fender replacement. Painted with Duplicolor spray cans.