I went ahead and swapped out my stock LT upper grille for an (Impala) SS upper grille yesterday. It was pretty easy to get the old one out, but putting in the new one without taking off the bumper cover I found it a little hard to get all of the tabs at the bottom of the grille into the holes in the bumper, because as you push the grillle in, the bumper goes in as well since there's nothing behind it near the grille.

 

Take pics!

 

Sorry it took so long to get pics, but it's been too rainy here to wash & wax the car and I wanted it clean before taking any new photos.
On the new grille, the Chevy bowtie isn't attached with any screws as it seemed to be on the diagrams that Chris posted at the beginning of this thread. I thought I might have to buy that separately, but it came with the grille. The color of the bowtie is slightly different (more brassy) on the grille than on my trunk now. I guess Chevy changed the color on the newer cars?
Here are some photos I took this afternoon:

 

New Grille looks Nice..

 

wow, that looks totally awesome! Now some questions for you

where did you get the grille?
are you planning on doing the bottow part now?

can you give more specifics on how you did it, this is something that I've wanted to from day one when I bought my Monte!!!!!

let me know when you get a chance, thanks Mark

 

I think it looks great!

 

Chris come on out to the midwest and we'll get you all taken care of! and any other mods ya wanna do/waiting to do!

 

I got the grille on eBay from a company called American Dismantler in Detroit, MI. Mine came from a 2008 Impala SS.

The bottom is going to have to wait for a while as I've got more pressing issues to take care of first: possible trans fluid leak (after having the fluid changed last month), may need to replace struts, will need new tires soon and possible front brake work.

It was pretty easy to get the old one out. Just remove the 2 clips at both ends of the black plastic part of the top of the grille (highlighted in yellow in the photo below), then pull the grille out toward you. There are 2 tabs at the top of the grille, 1 on each side and 6 tabs at the bottom that have to come out of the bumper cover.
Putting the SS grille on, I found it easier to also remove the clips at the top of the bumper cover (also highlighted in yellow), closest to the headlights. This way I could get my hand behind the bumper to hold it in place as you're trying to get the 6 tabs at the bottom of the grille into the holes on the bumper cover. But that's just me. You may not need to do that to get yours in correctly.


The SS grille should look really nice on your Monte, Chris, since black is one of the colors offered on the SS.

 

That looks great! Now you NEED the bottom one to match.

 

Looks Great!