How do I remove the base model's grill?
 

I'm not talking about the whole thing. I've got that figured out. 4 bolts on top and then pull from each side of the bottom. But from there, how do I get the silver plastic bars off? It looks like a bunch of tabs, and I tried putting something in each of them to keep them all unhooked at the same time, then pull the bar out from the outside, but it wouldn't budge. I used plastic pry bars and it looked like it would break before coming off. Has anyone done this? It seems like so few of you own base model CMs that I can't find anything on it.

I'm trying to plastidip them in black. I couldn't figure out how to safely get them off, so I taped them off instead. But when peeling the tape off at the end, it wants to peel the plastidip right off with it. So it looks good from afar. But close up and you can see why I want to redo it the right way.

Thanks for any help you can give me.

Did you ever figure out the answer to this question? I'm in the same place with my R60 base.

No, never figured it out. Didn't want to risk it. I ended up just painting it with black spray paint instead of plasti-dip so I didn't need to worry about the peeling problem.
Good luck.

OP was on the right track.

I cut up a few old zip ties into 1", 1 1/4"ish length pieces, and then used those to keep the plastic tabs from snapping back in after pulling them up. Part of the issue is that there are a LOT of tabs, and you basically need a piece between each and everyone of them before it'll budge.

Time consuming, but I don't recall there being much more to it than that.