Boss 302 Mustang Grille Installation (2013-14 GT & V6)

The 2013 Boss Grille Kit can really set your car apart from the crowd. The Boss grille is designed to delete the fog lights; however, with a little research and installation time we found that you can retain your factory LED fog lights if you choose. We also found the easiest installation method is to remove the front bumper. Removing the front bumper is a breeze and can easily be done in your home garage or driveway. If you are thinking about adding the Boss grille we would suggest you look at adding the 2013 Boss Chin Spoiler for that extra wow factor.

Start by removing the plastic radiator cover. It is held in place by 7 push pins. You can simply pull up on the center pin with your fingernails or with a flathead screwdriver. With the center pin pulled up you can now pull the full pin out. Set the radiator cover aside once you remove all the pins. NOTE: There are a lot of push pins, similar screws and bolts used in the install. It is a good idea to separate and/or store each component’s hardware accordingly. Next you need to remove the upper bumper cover hardware that is located under the radiator cover. The upper bumper cover is held in place by 4 screw head push pins and 4 bolts. Simply take a Phillips head screwdriver and loosen the screw type push pin and pull up to remove. Use a socket and ratchet to remove the four 7mm bolts and you are done on the top of the bumper.

Next you will need to jack the car up for better access to the underside of the bumper cover. With the Mustang on jack stands for safety, you can now remove the hardware holding the bumper to the wheel well liner. Remove the (3) 7mm screws holding the bumper to the wheel well. Repeat on other wheel well. Next you can move under the car. You will need to remove the rear air diffuser bolts (5 in total – 7mm). There is one on each side near the wheel well and the rest are in the center near the k member. You have now removed all mounting hardware that holds the bumper in place.

With the hardware removed, you can now start to pull the bumper away from the car. Start by working the wheel well liner away from the bumper. The corner of the front bumper cover that attaches to the fender snaps in and out of place. Gently pull this section away from the bumper. Once you break both corners lose you can now pull up and away on the upper bumper cover to pull the bumper cover off the car. Do not pull away too hard because the Fog Lights, ambient air sensor and park lights are still connected to the wiring harness. If you have a helper, have them disconnect the harness. If not you will need to prop the bumper cover up onto something to keep it from scratching on the ground. Start with the park lights as this gives you more flexibility to reach the other harness connections. With everything disconnected you can set the whole bumper cover and air diffuser aside.

With the bumper cover sitting on the ground you now have easy access to the rear section of the grille. To start the installation, removed both fog lights (if you haven’t seen the 2013 LED fog lights sit and admire the HUGE heat sink on the back). They are held in place by 3 bolts -7mm. You can now move on to popping the grille retaining tabs loose. These may leave saying a few unpleasant words but trust me it’s worth it in the end. The easiest way we found to get these to pop loose is to get a flathead screwdriver and insert it between the tab and the grille bracket. While prying them apart, push the tab forward away from the bumper cover. The more tabs you loosen the tighter and more in a bind the rest of the tabs get. This made the last two or three tabs the worst. With all the tabs lose you are now in the home stretch. Take the Boss grille and clean the area that new tri-bar pony emblem will go. We recommend an alcohol based solution that will remove any finger prints and won’t leave a film behind. Once clean, carefully line up the emblem and press it into place. Hold pressure on the whole emblem for a couple second are you are done. You can now snap the new 2013 Boss Grille into place.

The next step is to decide if you want to install the fog light deletes or retain your factory fog lights. To retain the fog lights you will need to cut a tab off the grille and can’t go back to using the fog light deletes. To install the fog light deletes, simply snap them into place from the outside of the grille. NOTE: the fog light deletes are labeled on the package left (driver’s side) and right (passenger side). If you are choosing to keep the fog lights, see the picture below to see the plastic tab that you will need to cut. We used a Dremel tool to cut the plastic but there are plenty of other ways to cut the plastic tab off. With the tab cut off you can now re-install the fog lights. You will notice the fog light touches the upper corner of the fog light bezel on the grille. You could trim this back a little as well but we decided against cutting the grille any more than needed. You can now re-install your front bumper and begin working in reverse of the bumper removal to re-install you bumper cover with the new Boss Grille.