custom grill

[ridemx129]

So after wheeling my niner for awhile the grill became cracked and shitty looking. I picked one up at the yard but when i got to the window the guys said it was going to be like 50 bucks! Frigg that, I decided to build one:

I had a sheet of aluminum diamond plate i think is about 1/8" thick. I then cut a square out of the sheet using a grinder, I forget the exact measurements. I measured the old grill including the bends. Then I cut 3" squares out of each corner. I don't have a bender really so I had to use some hillbilly ingenuity. So I scored the diamond plate where I wanted it to make its bend. Then I put it in the bench vise with two 2x4's to kind of extend the length of my vise, and heated where I scored the dp. then with a hammer and just by grabbing the metal and bending it I got it into a box form:

Then I marked out 7 boxes to cut out for air flow:



Then I cut out each square with my grinder and smoothing off every edge.



Then I went to Home Depot and bought some gutter guard to protect the holes in my grill. I stared by cutting them into the desired lengths, Then I sprayed a few coats of paint onto them. to install onto the grill I just used self tapping sheet metal screws threw the inside of the grill and pointing outward towards the bumper. the screws I used were just a little to long and pointed through the grill. so I just used the grinder to get rid of the excess and smooth down.
there was a lot of going back and forth from the garage to the jeep to make some cuts in order to make it fit but I'm really happy with the end result since I'm building an off road rig and not a show car.

Now I have an all metal grill that I don't have to worry about sticks or whatever else could find its way through a plastic grill

[dragordie]

Dude all I can say is Fit Form & Function NICE.
What side of Chicago are you at?

[ridemx129]

as south as you can be but still in the city. mount greenwood.

You ever wheel in laurel in? I just heard from a random jeep guy in a parking lot that theres some sick place in laurel called haspen acres. supposed to be pretty sick

[ridemx129]

my next plan for the niner is to carry on with the diamond plate (since i have a sheet and a half left in my garage) and make my own tailights. I cracked my taillight wheeling the other night and now its time for some flush mount led. they should be arriving on tuesday so ill do a writeup after the install. then im going to use the diamond plate to replace my stock headlights and install some round headlights(hopefully 2 for each headlight)

[dragordie]

Been downto Haspen, badlands, Red bird, Bundy hill, rocks and valleys, Cliffs wheeled alot of places in the last 20 years. So are you down by Chicago Heights? I am about1 hour from ILL line. Only one good place to wheel around here is @ A M Generalproving grounds the club I was in we did a charity gig (Wheeling for autism) theclub and AM General teamed up and AM General let us play for about 6 hours at theirproving grounds. It’s basically where they try and to destroy the Humvee.