Does anyone know if the hood and grill are made together as one piece? From all the photos that I have seen, they appear to be made as one but I have not seen a photo with the hood raised yet. I think it would been nice if it were made together. It sure would make it easy to clean the mud and bugs out of the radiator.

 

I just looked at pics of the trck after reading our post, and from what I can see it is one solid piece.

 

I wondered the same thing about the hood. From what I can tell the hood and grill are (1) piece , like tundra and ram.

 

its a tough call until we see a pic of the hood actually up. if you look at this pic, you can see that there is a seam above the grille where it meets the hood. it could either be bolted together where the whole hood and grille will raise together, or that could just be the gap where the hood meets the grille and opens like it always has

 

I would also agree Harley#356. It does look like a seam in that pic. The pic below is the one that I had been looking at. It's not nearly as obvious. If it does turn out to be a seam Ford has done a good job of hiding it.

 

While the grill and hood are distinct pieces - they are assembled together. Which means... the grill goes up with the hood.

 

i agree. Grille goes up with hood. See below:

 

Ahh you beat me to it. Oh well I agree with you though.

 

well i went to the philly auto show today. they only had one 04 F150 there, and it was roped off on a turn table. anyway, i looked at it, and it looked like it could go either way, i asked one of the ford reps to open the hood for me, he goes in and pulls the hood release, i hear a pop, but nothing happens to it. he tries again and checks it out and tells me its broken The truck is brand spanking new and its already broken

if it is one piece, its gonna be a PITA to install a bugguard

 

Here's a snippet from Ford's writeup on the concept Lightning:



That confirms that the production F-150 has the grille attached to the hood.

 

cool. that'll make it easier for cleaning and stuff. just a PITA if anybody wants to install a bugguard. wonder how they're gonna design one of those up.


still want to see some underhood pics. i know its the same engine, but i want to see the radiator cover and how all that new stuff looks

 

how do the Ram guys do their bug guards? I dont expect that it would be much different.

 

i'm pretty sure their grille unbolts from underneath, and then they attach the bugguard inbetween. but if the 04F150 is one piece, like sealed together, and not just bolted on, it could be more of a PITA. maybe bolted above where the headlights go, then double sided tape in the middle part?
be interesting to see what they come up with

 

For me, at least, if the new front end will let the wipers stay on the windshield I won't care about a bug shield. On my '97 the air would lift the wipers off the glass about the time I hit 60 MPH. At least with the bug shield (lower profile Lund) the wipers still work at 70-75 MPH.