I did not take many detailed pics like others have who built their Satoshi grilles, but I just followed certain steps from others on this forum. I'm just going to give a quick walk through here on my build thread on how I made mine.
I ended up getting the grille for free. Not only was it a gift, but it arrived to my house damaged (scratches in the chrome finish) and the aftermarket company that sold it refunded us while letting us keep the grille since they had no more in stock. My parents got me a chrome grille thinking I was going to paint it (I mentioned I wanted to Plasti-Dip mine) but I could not pass up this opportunity to build my Satoshi grille with this free, aftermarket grille since the idea of taking on this project was a little intimidating
Cutting: Like every other member who has conquered this project has done, I had to cut out the inner part of the grille. The tools I used for this were a simple hacksaw and a jigsaw. The plastic cut so easily and within 20 minutes I had the frame. The slightly downside of the aftermarket grille was that the entire thing was one piece (the chrome center piece could not be removed) and made cutting around it slightly more difficult. This is the piece I'm talking about
:
Sanding: Nothing special here, I just sanded down the inner portion of the frame to get it to be as flat and smooth as possible. I also took this opportunity to sand the rest of the frame to prep for painting. Here is the frame after it has been cut, sanded, and washed.
Aluminum Sheet Metal: Fitting the Aluminum Sheet Metal mesh was by far the most difficult task of this project. I used a metallic silver permanent marker to draw the outline of the grille. I cut the shape with a pair of scissors. My mom helped a lot with cutting the mesh and bending it to fit the grille.
Close up of the mesh (metallic silver marker already on it):
Attatching the Mesh: After hours of playing with the mesh (and a week off in between out of frustration
) I was ready to attach the mesh. I have seen methods such as zip tying, gluing, double sided tape, and just screwing it on. I chose to screw it on. I bought a box of self tapping screws and washers. Because of the shape of the grille, it was nearly impossible to drill straight, so a bunch of crooked screws secured the aluminum mesh to the frame of the grille
. I would just drill in whichever spot needed it, and did not keep track of how many I used. After that though, this mesh is not going anywhere.
Miscellaneous: After the mesh was secured to the frame of the grille, I was not entirely satisfied with the appearance. There was a gap between the frame of the grille and the mesh, which also revealed much of the uneven bends in the metal. I went to Advanced Auto Parts to look for a rubber weatherstripping of some sort but found something even better. It is a chrome molding with 3M adhesive on one side (could have done without the chrome, but the entire thing will be painted so it didn't bother me.) Here are pictures showing the gap on one side, and the chrome molding after it is applied.
Here is the gap on the side:
After the 3M molding is applied:
I will be installing the "TOYOTA" badge once the grille is painted. I will paint the whole thing (frame, molding, mesh) black. Unfortunately, the temperature this week won't go above 30 degrees so doesn't look like I'll get a chance yet
But in the meantime, here is a shot I got where I laid the badge on top of the mesh and taped it, just so I can see how it'll look.
Also, taking opinions, should I put the V8 badge on the Satoshi grille? If I do, I'll paint it white to match the "TOYOTA" badge.
Linear Mode
