Taking apart the two piece grille. ( DIY )

JWerner2

JWerner2

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So I decided it was about time to paint the center of my LSE/06 grille.

I removed the grille and took a closer look at it and realized it was a two piece!

Heres what you need to do, very easy!

1. Remove the grille from the car, Duh!


2. Remove the studs.
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2. Gently with a needle nose pliers scrape away the black epoxy. Be careful cause there is a tab that is under it that you dont want to break off. If you do you will need to do a bit of extra epoxying.
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3. Gently pry the surround off of the center piece.
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4. Remove the nut behind the emblem space and pop out the two tabs on top and below the nut and stud.
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5. There you go. Now you have the grille apart to do as you wish. You can paint the goddy chrome like I am or you can replace it with some honey comb mesh for the McLaren look or woven mesh for the CDC look!

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Just reverse the steps and epoxy it all back together for re-installation.


:Beer
 
The center?

Im shooting it with primer now. I'll have them up tonight before I shoot the black then I'll have the finished product up when ever.

The other WIP I was doing is on the farthest burner back right now. Im annoyed with nothing sticking for me. I think I found the primer Im going to use for it now. Its sticking good to the center piece to this project.
 
Yea cool. I wanna see what the LSE grill looks like painted black before I take the chance on mine... I wish these stupid grills weren't all so expensive. A black LSE one just went on ebay for like $120... 4 years USED!

And of course most of us got ours new @ LSK for $180+

I am looking forward to the pics of yours painted! :D
 
So, Werner, you are making it just look like a regular gen2 grille with matched surround right?

I really like that look.
 
yeah looks like he is. Usually ppl "upgrade" from the reg ls grill to lse/ mclaren and the rest, but he's going backwards. Isn't the lse and ls grill the basically the same? The diff is that the lse has the chrome water fall and the reg grill has the chrome surround? Cant you just chrome up a reg ls grill and match the surround and its an lse grill? What kind of primer are you using? Where'd you get it? I forgot to get some but i've never bought primer before
 
Okay I just went out and looked. They are identical except the paint obviously.

So Werner why not paint your Stock Grill instead of the LSE?

This is what I will do.
 
Well lloyd you or Ken should have spoken up the dozens of times a question on this topic came up.

No, they are not the same. The water falls on the regular grilles have a funny beveled surface. The waterfalls on the LSE grille are smooth.

Also my main intention for this was to show anyone with either a Gen2 2 piece or a LSE/06 how to take them apart for multiple reasons as mentioned. Not to show anyone how to paint them or what it would look like after.

Its also easier for someone with a Gen2 2 piece to paint the surround this way so you dont have to tape everything off and worry about the fine edges.

The primer Im using came from a body shop. Some kind of etching primer that supposedly bonds to chrome.


Primed.
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I'll stay up late and get some black sprayed on it. Im not using anything fancy for that cause I want it to look OEM and match the valances and side skirts so I just opted to use Krylon Fusion flat.

Since the search obviously failed me as well as others plenty of times in the past hopefully this will make it easier to find.
 
I thought the same about the bevels on the vertical slats. I went out with my stock grill and held it next to the LSE and there were no differences?

Am I missing something?
 
Yes... the Gen1's are beveled and the Gen2's arent as easy to find in 2 piece as the LSE/06's are. Again, taking them apart, or having the ability to do so makes it easier.

One other part your still missing is the intentions of this post ( once again ) have or wasnt supposed to have anything to do with painting. Its still very helpful for those that want to go with the mesh.


BTW, I saw a blue LS a few days ago with the all chrome grille like the one in that link. I pulled over cause I was noxious:D
 
It will look something like this...... Without the bevel, of course.

black LSE grille.jpg
 
JWerner2 said:
Yes... the Gen1's are beveled and the Gen2's arent as easy to find in 2 piece as the LSE/06's are. Again, taking them apart, or having the ability to do so makes it easier.

One other part your still missing is the intentions of this post ( once again ) have or wasnt supposed to have anything to do with painting. Its still very helpful for those that want to go with the mesh.


BTW, I saw a blue LS a few days ago with the all chrome grille like the one in that link. I pulled over cause I was noxious:D
Click to expand...

Yea I have a gen2 one piece. It has the same slats as the LSE. I understand the point of this post, I am interested in the paint part though... lol

I have been wanting to paint one of my grills for the longest time. But now you are doing it. So I wanna see it
 
Cool, I'll be posting pics of it when its finished.

Another thing I must note. I also have a Gen2 one piece, the one Im filling the emblem space on and all. FIY, the entire grille is actually chrome and painted in the center. I nicked mine a tad and rubbed off a bit of the black on the center and under it is nice unscuffed shiny chrome ( well ugly unscuffed chrome to me. I hate chrome.;) ).
 
How much did that primer go for?
 
It was like 12 bucks for one of those funny sized cans like the smaller Duplicolor cans. I used it all pretty fast.

Here you go Andrizzle.

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It looks 100X's better than the chrome but 100X's better than the black with chrome surround!
 
The only one person that has a LSE with a painted center had no clue either. I asked him how he did it and he said it was sold to him like that all he knew was it was epoxied back together.

Sorry for actually adding something to the forum no one else knew existed.
 
I don't know if I like that or the McLaren better. They both look awesome.

Hyelife painted a the surround ona stock gen2. I loved it then, and it looks great here too.

Great work, and I see why you did it to this grille instead of a stock gen2 grille. I thought for a minute that you could've made money by maybe trading your LSE for someone's gen2 standard grille + cash, but painting something flat black is cheaper (and way easier) than color matching the surround on a potentially 1 piece grille.
 
Wow that turned out awesome.

I guess I am lucky cuz when I do mine I can paint the entire one-piece stock grill all black. Seeing how I have a black LS... Though I do not have much experience @ painting. And I want that shiny finish like my paint has now.

Werner did you sand the vertical slats during the process at all?
 
JWerner2 said:
It was like 12 bucks for one of those funny sized cans like the smaller Duplicolor cans. I used it all pretty fast.

Here you go Andrizzle.

dsc014876590791.jpg


dsc014856664823.jpg


It looks 100X's better than the chrome but 100X's better than the black with chrome surround!
Click to expand...

did you paint that yourself? if so, that came out perfect, what color is that?
 
JWerner2 said:
Yes... the Gen1's are beveled and the Gen2's arent as easy to find in 2 piece as the LSE/06's are. Again, taking them apart, or having the ability to do so makes it easier.
Click to expand...


So you're saying not all gen 2 grills are 2 piece? and that they are hard to find?


Good job on the painting. Looks real nice. I've never painted before except for rooms. This will be an interesting experience to see how back I jack up my grill.
 
Should I use flex paint like the kind in the tutorial for painting the rear surround? Because then I can knock out both things @ once.
 
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