[ruf]

Just finished. Not as easy as people describe it.




Light covers off:


My new garage:


More descriptions of my pain to come. I'm pleased with the results though.

[ruf]

As described in the walkthrough, I took the lower grille down about 1/4" on the bottom and the edges of the top. In retrospect I would probably take them down 5/16" or 3/8" as the grille still protrudes a touch. Not as bad as I've seen on others, but just a little. I also ground off the retention portion of the tabs since they just made fitment super tight and the grille was going to be held in by adhesive anyways. I didn't photo-document this because I was already too annoyed with having to do it for fear of breaking something while stuffing the grille in.


The bumper is easy to remove. Torx T-30 on the top. Turn the wheels to one side and use an 8mm with a short extension to get the bolts holding the sides. There's a little port in the wheelwell lining to allow you to get to those. 3 10mm bolts and 2 philips on the bottom and you're done. Lift the bottom of the bumper and rock it forward. This will release the 2 tabs on the top. Twist out your bulbs/sockets and unclip the external temp sensor from the bottom grille. A lot of people have bent grilles from not unclipping the temp sensor. Easy enough to bend back straight. I prefer to leave the clip in the grille and wiggle the sensor out of the holder. The 2 screws that retain the license plate mount in are behind the plate. Pull from the bottom to break loose the adhesive tape and slide the plate mount down and out.

Now for the cutting. I used a dremel small cutting wheel for this as it tends to "hot knife" through the urethane better than the heavy duty large cutting wheel. I cleaned up the cuts with an x-acto knife. A lot of tedious trimming to get everything nice and clean. Be careful where and how you attack the slots with the dremel and always know where the chuck is. You can easily abrade away part of your bumper with the knurled chuck. If you aren't comfortable/dextrous, don't attempt this. Pay someone else to do it. Much to my dismay, the actual "mesh" section of the grille hits the raised portion that used to be behind the lowest chrome slat. I cut this down as well. Again, I didn't photo-document this out of annoyance. Tack everything with adhesive from the back, much like the stock pieces were and you are ready to reassemble.

[ruf]

Few more notes. The upper slots were cut from the backside. The lower slots were cut from the front as well as the strips. I also had to shave the back side of the license plate mount where it touched the bottom part of the grille. Might not be a problem if you sink the grille in a little more.

[mancjimmy]

thanks again for posting the reply.great help! was wondering where you got the lamp covers from?can you get them in different colours?

[mattshea50]

do you know anyone who has done this to a mini one as i would like to do it to my mini.

Is there any differences

cheers

matt