Lower Grill Mesh Insert DIY

Lower Grill Mesh Insert DIY

This DIY will show you how to insert your own mesh into the lower grill opening on your 03 rolla. You may have noticed a HUGE gap in there. It looks like the perfect spot for a intercooler on a custom turbo aplication. But until then you can fill it up with some nice "Diamond Mesh". Rather than buying the APC (crap) stuff for $50 but the other stuff for $5 and DIY!! Heres how.

Go to your local Hardware store. You want a product called "Guttermesh" OR "Gutterguard". Its used to keep the leaves out of your gutters and clogging them. It used to be made only of Aluminum, but that seems to be harder to find these days. Here is a picture of the stuff



If you cant find the aluminum stuff, you can get the plastic stuff instead. It is a brown/black color but paints up very nice.

Once you have it just cut it the length you need, and paint it the desired color. After it is dry grab a bunch of very thin black wire. You will notice your lower grill has a number of vertical braces on it. I used a black wire on the upper and lower section of each peice to hold it in there snug. Then just make it look like it does in the picture.





Then you are done. You can also use this stuff for your Altis Grill instead of the cheap mesh it comes with.

besides the wires on the vertical plastic grille, where else do u attach it to? does it flap in the wind?

There is a small peice that the "S" spoiler part attaches to the bumper, I also looped a wire through that.

I have never been in front of my car when I was going 50 to see if it flapped though so I cant say for sure. when I park the cxar its just where I left it though

very funny. good enough for me.

you should try it. I find that the chromy look on the mesh makes the car seem to flow better. Since you have the chrome fading tint, and chrom altezza's it would look good. Also while you are there pull your lights out and clear them.

I will have pics up soon but my dad made me a bracket one night that fits right under there in that gap and we put the mesh in there. I just have to bolt it into the fitting in that gap.

yeah i keep thinking of clearing the front lights, but with the 2 1/2% tint. i dont wanna draw anymore attention to myself. one day i am gonna run into a cop with an attitude.

A lot of cars dont even have an orange peice on the fron there. They would never even notice you did it. They would werite a ticket for your tails before they write you up on the orange peice.

well if you had white bulbs in there, then they would figure out that something is going on.

Stinky, thanx for the DIY, now i gotta do it.

oh, i thought i needed it to be orange to pass inspection?

Stinky, mesh is awesome! Looks like a Home Desperate run for Johnny tonite!

i had the mesh in my airdam too...i don't know if u can see it too well in this pic...its painted black to match the mesh on my grille...but when i took a road trip up north...the bugs ripped this thing apart...it looked bad =p

i ended up taking it off and i'm too lazy to do it again hehe nice work tho stinky :wink: btw i used zip ties to hold the mesh in place

If you look really close, you can see the mesh in my sig pic as well. Its just so far away its hard to tell.

I am looking at how I can make my horn honk when I lock and unlock the car now. I almost had it figured out but then realized it wouldnt work.

As for the orange lights. You wont need an inspection on your car for a few years still. When you do just put the orange bulbs back in and you are set to go.

I have been using white bulbs for blinkers for over 5 years now with no sign of orange on ANY of my cars. NEVER 1 problem.

Yea I did this almost like the first couple of days I got the car.

Very good mod Stinky..

I died it behind my liscense plate, Im surprised you guys dont have liscense plate where mine is



You can barely see it, but its there hehee...

Yep Alberta is one of the few places left that dont need a front plate on the car. He he, gotta love it!!

I saw a guy in BC that cut the top and bottom off his front plate so it would fit better on his car. He had 3 tickets for no front plate before he did it. Now its been 1 year and havnt heard if he got in trouble for cutting it all up yet.

Quebec also!

Jae, i have a similar license plate as yours

btw how do you mount the lower grill
is it just using a whole bunch of wires to hold them on the vertical brace

1 more thing, Jae what color is ur grill
my rolla is also indigo, so thinking what color i should put on mine :roll:

Was black.
Now silver.

I used black wire to hold mine in. That way you cant see it. If you have a white car then probably a white wire would work better.

Jae, but is it gonna be a VERY big contrast between silver (chrome) and the indigo?
thinking whether i should do chrome or black

Thanks to Stinky

I got my GutterGaurd installed. Can't for the life of me figure out how to get pics posted right (yes I tried the sticky), but if you click on this, it works:

http://www.imagestation.com/mypictu...a4f21f5e237ae22a4/fc234390.jpg&caption=my toy

It's tough to see in this pic, but I did behind the upper grill too. Now my wife wants me to do it to hers. My 03 is MoonShadow, hers is Lunar. Wondering if black wouldn't look better on hers.

You almost had it all the way with the pic hosting.

I used to have the mesh behind my upper grill as well. But when I painted my grill black I didnt like how much the mesh showed through on the black grill.

Looks good on your car though.

I think silver looks good no matter what color the car is. Unless you have a color scheme for the car, then stick with that theme by doing the mesh that color too.

TIP: when you have your pic uploaded to your hosting site, just right click on the picture. then select "Add to favorites"

then just open your favorites window and select the one you just addedd. Now you will see ONLY the picture and it will be fit to the top left corner. Highlight the address in the adress bar and copy it. then come back hgere and use the "IMG" button on the top of the text window. Click it one time, then past your pictures link after it, then press the "IMG" button again.

You should then have succesfully addedd the pic on here with no link to your site.

Thanks guy. I'm going to take a better pic soon, when the sun isn't drowning out the details. Will get it posted right next time!

Can you believe I've been in computers since 1979, and I have no clue how to do that? The W didn't get popular 'till a few years ago, by then it was a case of "teaching a old dog new tricks".

Got it

Thats ok I never had the internet until about 3 years ago. I could get around with PC's before that, but once Qbasic was no longer the main programming code I was LOST!!!

I even made my own WP for my IBM PC jr, so I could keep a "journal" on the computer. (yeah I was a geek!)

ooh ooh...I think we're showing our age.

cept im only 25. he he.

there is an easier way to get a picture's url than the way stinky showed...u can right click the desired picture...then select 'properties' ... a window w/ the pictures information will be displayed including the image's URL...just copy the url and paste it w/ the img tags when u make the post. hope this helps! :wink: 8)