Finally took some pics of my painted grille, let me know what you think...

http://stu.aii.edu/~njm183/tl01.jpg

http://stu.aii.edu/~njm183/tl05.jpg

http://stu.aii.edu/~njm183/tl06.jpg

http://stu.aii.edu/~njm183/tl07.jpg

 

very nice! now just remove your front plate to clean the front end up!

 

You should get those headlights blacked out.

 

Looks pretty good. I'm looking for a billet grille myself right now.

 

can you post a walk thorugh, i wanna do the same thing, if i were you id take off the A and paint the mesh black, and take off the front license plate, it would look super clean

 

i wana paint mine SSM too with a black mesh grille

 

nice. i think you should clear your headlamps and maybe black it out while youre at it. yeah, just clearing those orange reflectors will make a huge improvement on the front of the car

 

i got the black mesh in now all i gotta do is paint the chrome SSM, im kinda afraid it wont come out right, like not the exact same color and shine of the car

 

Thanks for the suggestions guys, however:

1) I can't remove my front plate because it's a law in New Jersey

2) I tried black mesh but with everything else being black, you could see right through the mesh to that piece of the hood that's behind it, and it didn't look too great.

But yes I definitely want to either clear or clear/black-out my headlights, just havn't gotten up the courage to do it yet. One of the things keeping me from doing it before was the fact that I had to take off my bumper, which I wasn't comfortable doing, but recently I removed my intake resonator and had to take the bumper off for that, which made me realize it's not a big deal. I have spring break in 3 weeks so I think I might do it then.

If you do a search for mesh grille you will see many posts that explain how to do it. The only thing I did differently was that I cut away the center beam and all the plastic mesh that was on the stock grille. If you do this, you'll realize that cutting the center beam out leaves two big holes in the sides of the back grille piece. My solution for this was to cut 1/8" plexiglass pieces the size of the holes, hot glue them on, smooth everything out with bondo, and then paint over it. It sounds really ghetto but you can't even tell there were holes there before, it looks smooth. If I ever take the grille apart again I'll be sure to take some pics of it. Most of my efforts went to waste since putting the silver mesh over it would have hidden it anyway, but it was for my own sanity rather than aesthetics.

 

i dont get what you mean by the two big holes in the black part of the grill

 

Take a look at this pic (sorry subtledreamer, I borrowed your pic).....I have the part you cut drawn in red, you should get the idea. If not, let me know and I'll try to think of some other way to explain it.


http://stu.aii.edu/~njm183/grille-back-info.jpg

 

i dont kno....personally im a fan of the chrome front grill..it looks good on the TL

 

ohhh but doesnt that get covered by the mesh anways

 

it gets covered, but sometimes you can still see thru and see it... im planning on taking that off when i paint the mesh black... and the SSM painting.. i dont think im gona do it- lke you said, its not gona turn out the same as professionals

 

yea im gonna have my body shop do it real quick

 

that grill looks nice man i think u should ummmm help me do mine lol

 

no problem at all... in fact im glad my pictures can help you guys out

what i don't understand, though, is the cutting of what you pointed out in red. the mesh sandwiches fine without any cutting when i did it... and you cant really see what's behind the mesh unless you are up really close.

i tweaked the brightness and contrast a lot in this pic, but you get the idea.


also an old picture showing how close you need to be in order to see what's behind. this was my first attempt at the grille and the fitting was horrible... haha


btw, grille frame looks good matched with your car

 

Man, how did you complete this task?

 

looks wikid bro!

 

I think this is what the tl grilles should look like in the first place. Both of these cars are hot. Oh RelentlessOne where would a novice such as I come across that stainless steel looking mesh that you used?

 

where did you guys get your mesh from? im thinkin about re-meshing my Mugen Grille and my fog holes

 

The mesh I used for my grille is nothing other than Gutter Guard purchased at Home Depot. While I'm posting, how did you other grille modifiers attach your emblem to the mesh?