[djafactor]

Pepe underwent surgery this weekend. Thought I'd share some pics. Special thanks to Chris and his Mom for letting me use their garage and tools and Barret (the dog) for supervising.

Enjoy....

Prior to surgery:



Upper grill done:



Chris and I rubbing the MINI emblem for good luck:



Chris with the tools, don't forget the MINI toolkit:



Up on jackstands, ready to fly:



What have we done to a 6 week old car!!!



My new phallus



Taped up ready for paint:



I'm spray painting a 6 week old car!!!



Almost there didn't loose a screw:



Thank you Herr Dremel:



Back together new dental work:



Say cheese!!!



Amit

[djafactor]

did the pics come up?

Amit

[jamiesim]

looky looky very good....

nice work...

[monsta]

Looks very nice, goes well with the black roof

[bigahead]

Quote:

don't forget the MINI toolkit

...I've got a tool kit with my mini???????????

... you learn something new everyday!!!!!

[JimMini]

Nice Job ! Looks great,... have you thought about "black chroming" the headlights as well? I think that would tie the grills and top together !, just a thought

[Smokey 4]

On all my resto VW's (airboxes, ok, not these new fangled waterboxes) I've installed black headlight rings. There are many companies out there that offer this "black chroming" ring for the VW market always thought it looked great, and think it would here as well.

Great pics and car!

[warp]

Looks Great!

[smiffy]

Quote:

Originally posted by monsta
Looks very nice, goes well with the black roof

Yeah, makes a change from all those red/White

[LuckyRVA]

Very nice!
I cringed when I saw you spray painting you're 6 week old MINI
But, it turned out nice.

[Albert]

Looks gooood!

Was there any other reason for removing the bumper, other than to paint it?

Also, could you give a little more detail on how you got the lower grille surround to fit? (e.g. what parts did you need to dremel? did you need to use any type of adhesive? how hard was it to remove the stock lower grille surround?)

Sorry for the 20 questions... but I'm really interested in doing this mod when my MCS finally gets here.

[djafactor]

The reason for removing the bumper is to remove the original lower grill. The chrome part has tabs stuck into the bumper with a little adhesive that needs to be pried off from the inside fo the bumper. The red slat is attached with double sided tape and is just peeled off.

As far as preparing the grill...The picture i show is incorrect. I removed all the tabs and used an exterior doublesided tap to mount it to the bumper. Basically you need to make sure the tape is attached to the edges of the grill as this will be the point of contact with the bumper.

I dremeled off about a 1/4 inch from the lower portion of the grill and measured in 2 1/4 inches in from each side on the top portion and took a 1/4 inch off there too. The best thing to do is tape everything off with masking tape, it makes it easier to see what you are cutting. Also make sure you use a variable speed dremel as if it is too fast it is hard to control.

I used the instructions by R53W11 as a guide at:
MINI Grill Install Instructions

if you have any specific questions let me know.

good luck

Amit

[Albert]

Thanks for the details Amit!

How long did this process take you?

[djafactor]

No problem with the questions,

It took a couple of hours. Use a Matte finish paint (it looks better and dries extremely quickly). Paint it before you start to dremel and it will be dry by the time you are done. Painting while the bumper is off helps so the paint doesn't run.

good luck

Amit

[R53W11]

Amit - Thanks for the promo!

I did mine a little different - I left the tabs on and made new slots in the bumper to slide them in. In hindsight I think Amit's way is better - cut off all the tabs and tape (or glue) the grille to the bumper. This way you don't have to cut into the bumper like I did, and it is easier to test fit the grille before you install it for good.

The slots I made for the tabs were so tight of a fit, once I put the grille in to test fit it on the bumper it was stuck fast! There was no way to remove it with risking damage to the grille. Fortunantly the fit was good and I'll never have to worry about the grille falling off - but if I did it again I would like to be able to fine-tune the fit and not having the tabs would allow this.

I saw a MINI that had the gille installed on the stock bumper without any material removed from the back - he shaved the tabs off and that was it - filled the back of the grille with putty/epoxy to build up an area to use to apply adhesive to stick to the bumper and it was done! You would still have to remove the bumper to remove the stock grille and paint the bumper - but no dremel tool skills would be required. It doesn't look quite as nice as one fitted to the bumper - but it isn't bad and saves a lot of time! Here is an image:



...and my car for comparison, look closely, especially towards the ends.

[R53W11]

Amit - I've added a picture of your car on my site!

BTW - I see you are in Indy - are you going to the F1 race?

[djafactor]

i probably will, I'm going to scalp a ticket the day of the race. I might stop by the corral to say hello. The corral is pretty much full i think so it'll be fun

take care, thanks for the great instructions

Amit

[R53W11]

Yeah - I'll be in the BMWCCA corral - Stop by if your around, you know what my car looks like! :-)

[rlwaddell3]

Amit,
First of all the grill mod looks great.... I will be wanting to do that to my new Silver S when it comes in.
Where did you get the aero kit for the car? I would like to purchase the parts right away.
Again, thanks for the all the pics of the process.
Rick

[Bad Ess]

Amit, I have the 3 Areo parts coming. It looks like your paint work matched. What brand of matte black? Is that just to paint out the body color behind the grill?

Your help would be great. Thanks