Custom Mount Billet Grille

People love the aggressive look, and clean lines of a billet grille.  You can get these billet grilles in many designs and applications to fit most vehicles, and some come in both bolt over and cut out format.  You can pick them up online, or I'm sure your local auto shop would be glad to order you in one.  Easy enough to comprehend, the bolt over grilles mount with long hardware through your existing grill and fasten tight against it.  The cut out grilles involve a little more work, as you must first cut and remove your stock grill, and then install the billet grille with new hardware that includes brackets.   

Our blog post today falls somewhere right in the middle.  We managed to obtain a bolt over style grille for our Chevy Colorado, used for about $60.  Personally, we too enjoy the lines of a billet grille, but wanted the cleanliness of the cut out style for that real custom look.  The only think standing in our way... Brackets!  So we decided to make our own.  Easy enough right?

This post works well for leading you through the steps of installation for a cut out grill even if you have the proper mounting hardware, just eliminate some of our fabrication steps and use the hardware and instructions given to you by the manufacturer.

Things you will need:

• ½” by 1/8” aluminum flat bar ( ours was an 8 foot length)
• Drill, or drill press
• Dremel style rotary tool, or a small grinding wheel
• Tape measure!
• Pliers
• Vice
• An afternoon, and a beverage of choice
• Hacksaw blade
• Hacksaw
• Assorted hand tools (files, screw drivers, wrenches), so have your toolbox ready

We started by removing the grill assembly or grille shell from the front of the truck. Each is to there own on this one, they are all different.  For us, it was a matter of 5 clips and 2 light harnesses.

Make sure to take a second and look it up or ask someone who may know, because there is nothing more frustrating then starting a mod only to break something else.  

 

From there we took our grille to a clean workspace and started the surgery.  We cut neatly along the top of the grille with a hacksaw blade.  This seemed to work the best, providing us with a clean cut that we could later smooth with a grinding wheel and file.

 

Once the top of the grille was cut loose, we flipped the grille assembly over to expose the plastic “welds” that held the black mesh into the  grill shell.   

With the rotary tool and grinding drum attachment, quick work was made of the “welds” as they were buzzed off flat allowing the black mesh to literally just “pop” out!

The grille of the Colorado is now hollow, with the one cut edge along the top, that we wanted to smooth out a little.   

 Again using the rotary tool with the sanding drum, and a small hand file we smoothed this edge up and rid of any small bumps or plastic imperfections left behind from the cut. 

Now the tricky part!  Once we had our empty grill shell we began to lay out the brackets with our ½” aluminum flat bar.

 Please take your time with the fabrication of the brackets.  The brackets are a crucial step that will ensure your grille sits flush on the outside, stays centered in the grill shell, and these brackets will also provide rigidity to the entire grill shell once the billet grilles are mounted.

We stared by laying the grille in the shell face down and began setting up our lower brackets.  We place them across the grill to get a visual interpretation, then took the appropriate measurements and marked the length of the hardware and location of the mounting holes.  Finally we cut the bar and pre-drilled our top and bottom mounting holes as well as the bolt holes for where the grill will mount. The lower hardware is good to go. 

Our Colorado was a little tricky, and since these brackets are all original and we do not have the store bought kit, we made a custom cross brace that aloud us to tie all the brackets together and insure the grille won’t shake all over the place.  We did this because we had nothing to mount our brackets to on the bottom of the grill without it being visible.  *Remember, the cleaner the better* we took the extra time to make this install nice and clean. 

Therefore, after making the 2 vertical brackets, straight and simple with 4 pre-drilled holes, we moved on to the custom cross brace.  We drilled a ½” hole through the middle lower grille shell mount, and twisted the aluminum flat bar in the vice in order to get the brace shaped the way we needed it.  We then pre-drilled the ends of the brace, where it would meet up with the horizontal brackets we just completed as well as the upper screw hole, where it will mount to the grille shell mount.  Now we have successfully completed all of the lower hardware which definitely was the more difficult part.

The upper grille was a little easier.  We measured and cut 2 pieces of flat bar and bent the ends to about 50 or 60 degrees.  This modified “L” bracket design was then pre-drilled for the grille bolts and upper mounting screws.  The “laid back L” shape let the brackets rest nicely under the upper black plastic of the grille shell, while keeping the front of the billet grille flush in the shell.  The Last 2 brackets were by far the most simple, and involved no more than a couple straight pieces of flat bar, again pre-drilled for the grille bolts and 4 mounting screws. 

Once all our hardware was done we mounted it all up and test fit the grille and hardware, to position it right where we wanted it, before marking and pre-drilling the mounting holes in the grille shell.  After, the hardware got a quick coat of paint to black them out, and we were ready to mount the grille!

When mounting the grille we made sure to take our time to avoid scratching the grille shell, as well as our freshly painted hardware.   Mounting this two piece upper grille was done one section at a time. 

We started with the bottom section first because it is the most rigid section of the grill shell.  This is important because we can better guarantee that the grille will mount straight, and without stressing the shell.  Once this lower grill is in place, its presence in the opening and the hardware will strengthen the upper portion of the shell from flexing when installing the upper grille.  This is just our recommendation.

Back to the install,

We secured the hardware snug, but not tight, to the lower grille and were able to place it into position from the back of the shell.  We then centered it, and place two ½” screws into the shell through the upper holes in the hardware.  

All of the holes were first pre-drilled to make sure our screws didn’t crack the plastic, but instead tap through it. 

Yes! Our hardware is long, it was later cut.  Recycle:)

We then placed our lower cross brace through it’s hole in the lower shell mount, and secured it to the two pieces of hardware with two ½” screws.  This stopped the grille from moving from side to side and up and down once we mounted the brace with its ½” screw through the shell mount.  Finally we tightened down the grill bolts and moved on to the upper grille.

We started by placing the upper grill gently in place.  Then we positioned the hardware and secured it to the grille.  Next, we lined up our pre-drilled holes and placed four ½” screws through the lower mounting hardware and into the grille shell.

 

The next step was to flush the upper black plastic to the top crossbar of our upper grille, and just secure the two ½” self-tapping screws from the top, trough the black plastic and into the upper mounting hardware.

  Now turn it around and take a look.  If you’re as lucky as we were the first time, it came out beautifully and sat nicely in the grille shell.  It is not irregular for some installs to need a little tweaking though, so don’t get disappointed too quickly. Plus, there’s no saying you can’t go back and fiddle with it later, if you want to, just pop off the grill and adjust your hardware as needed.  The slotted openings in the actual grille, where the hardware mounts, provide adequate adjust ability and should allow you to center the grille perfectly or very close to it, and you are done!  Just re-install your grille shell the same way you removed it and drive on.

Yup, there's the look we had in mind.  Sleek, clean and aggressive.  Perfect! Enjoy guys.

photos done by Justin - DIY Car Modifications