Well after my radiators getting pounded at the track I decided to install some grills. After reading a few post on the issue I decided to fabricate them myself out of wire mesh. I found removing the grill pretty straight forward, but making the grills took longer than I thought.
Here are the steps. (If anyone has an easier way, please let me know)
- Open boot and remove front plastic piece. It is only held on by velcro, so just pull it up. It is joined on each end to the side pieces, so make sure to unclip them (Pic 1).
- Remove three Torx T-30 screws (Pic 1)
- Remove T-30 screw under car in center of bumper inside plug ...Thanks DarrellC for helping me find this one (Pic 2)
For each side do:
- Remove clip which snugs bumper to fenders (Pic 3). To pull them out I just made a hook from a coat hanger(Pic 4) to grab the clip and slide it out.
- Remove both side markers by prying the front of it backwards and lifting it (I used a credit card)
- Remove T-30 screw behind side marker (Pic 5)
- Remove 2 T-30 screws under car towards center of bumper. (Pic 6)
- Remove 2 T-30 screws under car by fender well (2 left screws in Pic 7)
Now there is only one screw left on each side holding the bumper on. I found I had to remove the wheel and the inner fender liner to get to it.
- Remove Wheel
- Remove T-30 screw which holds front lip to bumper on each side (bottom left of Pic 7)
- Remove 3 T-30 Screws under car (Right 3 screws in Pic 7)
- Remove Small rubber strip which these screws where holding
- Remove 6 T-25 screws which hold inner lining (see Pic 8)
- Remove 1 T-25 screw under car which holds inner lining also (No Pic)
- Peel back inner fender to get to last screw. The screw is behind the inner fender by the side marker
- Remove T-30 screw (Pic 9)
- Slide bumper off (Pic 10)
- Vacuum out all the rocks, leaves, and rubber
I then formed some grills out of wire mesh and painted them black. These are solely for function and not "bling". The paint will probably start to chip away from all the track debris ... but better them than my radiators. I screwed them in with some black metals screws. Probably have to replace them each year. In retrospect I think I should have used a heavier gauge mesh, but these will work for now.
