Fox T-Bird/Cougar Forums

Technical => Body/Appearance/Interior => Topic started by: project87thunderbird on December 13, 2004, 05:44:31 PM

Title: Custom Grill
Post by: project87thunderbird on December 13, 2004, 05:44:31 PM
i was looking into making a custom grill for my car. my 87 t-bird sport grill is alright, but i want somthing that will make the car stand out. i thought i would be cool to do a custom grill n stick a big turbo coupe bird symbol in the middle, i wanted to make it out of mesh kinda like eric from coolcats did but the guy wont contact me back to let me know where he got it.  :2gunsfiri so if u konw n e cool kinds of mesh i could use or n e thing let me know cause i liked the speaker pattern one but cant find it  :wtf:
Title: Re: Custom Grill
Post by: baxo on December 13, 2004, 06:39:53 PM
oh you won't get an answer out of eric for the grille, that's his ancient chinese secret ;). If there's one secret he keeps about his car, it's definitely his custom grille.

But if you look around on his site more, it says he got it at a swap meet.
http://www.coolcats.net/eric/86convertible/history/2003.html
Title: Re: Custom Grill
Post by: jimfulco on December 14, 2004, 01:50:01 AM
I was going to just paint mine black, but it got pulverized before I got around to it.
Title: Re: Custom Grill
Post by: zpyro on December 14, 2004, 02:43:14 AM
I can get stainless perforated metal like that at my work, got a bunch of it around
Title: Re: Custom Grill
Post by: turbo83coupe on December 18, 2004, 08:23:47 PM
I think I might have something that would interest you possibly. I have an 83 TC, and I also was going to do soemting with my grill this winter when i get it painted, and for my idea, I ran across Summit. In their sport compact section, they have the "mesh" that you were tlaking about. It comes in a couple different colors. and its only like $25 for a 8"H 47"L roll of it. I was thinking of buying it for my grill, and thought you might be interested in it also.

 Let us know what you come up with,

  Frank M.
Title: Re: Custom Grill
Post by: cougarman on December 18, 2004, 08:44:01 PM
Home Depot and Lowes has that mesh like Summit, but way cheaper!!! :grinno:
Title: Re: Custom Grill
Post by: andrew beedle on December 18, 2004, 09:06:41 PM
Are you thinking somthing like this???

(http://memimage.cardomain.net/member_images/1/web/349000-349999/349244_17_full.jpg)

Erics grill is a a well kept secert that he has shared with me but thats only because I created my own with out any info from him. Now its up to you to make your own but by next year mine will be different.
Title: Re: Custom Grill
Post by: Bird351 on December 18, 2004, 09:27:17 PM
http://store.summitracing.com/eproduct.asp?N=120+4294925242+4294922534+305152

That stuff?

That's what my friend used to redo the grille on my old Escort.. and what I wanted to use when I had the car originally.. and may just use on the '86's grille someday. (or, more likely, try to get a second grille and mod that one.. so in case I screw it up, I have the original to put back on) Anyway, I think he used the Home Depot equivalent.
Title: Re: Custom Grill
Post by: Thunder Chicken on December 18, 2004, 09:39:57 PM
I stumbled across this awhile ago. Never saw one actually on a car but it looks lkinda cool:

http://www.spoilers.com/clearance/fotbird.htm
Title: Re: Custom Grill
Post by: turbo83coupe on December 18, 2004, 11:37:49 PM
yeah, thats the stuff... havnt been to lowes/HD in a while, so didnt know it was there for cheaper. I had just remembered that stuff from Summit...


Frank M.
Title: Re: Custom Grill
Post by: Cougars 2 go on December 19, 2004, 01:07:36 AM
This was a quick five-minute job just to see how it would look.  Perhaps you could take a similar approach with a T-Bird:


(http://img67.exs.cx/img67/7167/grillmod3fp.jpg)

(http://img67.exs.cx/img67/3897/grillemod2ym.jpg)
Title: Re: Custom Grill
Post by: zpyro on December 19, 2004, 05:14:38 AM
like i said, the stuff i can get is WAY too thick, check your local sheet metal shops bro
Title: Re: Custom Grill
Post by: lowcat on December 19, 2004, 10:06:41 AM
That looks awsome! :banana:  You did that in 5 minutes? Very impressive.
Title: Re: Custom Grill
Post by: Bird351 on December 19, 2004, 01:40:41 PM
I have a couple ideas I want to look into, because I think that diamond-shaped mesh on Andrew's is a little too thick. (don't get me wrong, it looks good.. I'd just want less metal blocking the opening) Maybe I should start looking for a cheap spare grille for the '86 and try this sooner rather than later.

EDIT: I was thinking of something like this as one possibility. 1/2" hardware cloth, the plain ol' Home Depot kind, heavily coated with black paint and maybe some clearcoat. My original notion was to turn that 45 degrees to make it a diamond pattern, but that could be annoying to try and line up.. so I could just try it as lined up in the pic.
Title: Re: Custom Grill
Post by: zpyro on December 19, 2004, 04:19:31 PM
I use that stuff on the bottom of my rabbit pen
Title: Re: Custom Grill
Post by: Bird351 on December 19, 2004, 04:31:59 PM
Heh.. I use it to surround a small raised garden I made a couple years ago, to keep the critters out. I caged in the rest with a larger wire, but the local birds could get into it.. so I stopped using it. I need to build an entire cage out of hardware cloth for the stuff I really want protected.
Title: Re: Custom Grill
Post by: project87thunderbird on December 24, 2004, 12:06:11 PM
LOL yea that custom grill is sweet though, but problem is my car is already in the shop getting painted o well