The M7 Ultimate Upper and Middle Grill set is a great upgrade to your MINI if you want that extra bling. The grills are top quality and fit the spaces on the car very well and they look great.
The only negative is the lack of written directions of any kind. The manufacturer (Grillcraft) has a web page that has a pictorial install but it doesn’t quite cut it with out some written directions. So I have decided to try and fill the gap with my install experience.

Step 1: When you get that shipment you have been waiting for, try to restrain yourself from just ripping everything out of the box. The grills are in a large plastic bag but please note that inside that plastic bag is a very small plastic bag with 2 stainless bolts and 2 self locking nyloc nuts. These are for the mounting of the upper grill. Here is one area where I get nit picky. These two bolts need to be about ¼” longer and it would make the install a lot easier. If you can contain yourself I would take them to the parts store and get some longer ones.
Also included in the little bag are 3 rubber like washers and 3 metallic push on fasteners for mounting the lower grill. I will tell how to easily install these later.

Look at the grills for a minute and notice that the 2 tabs on the upper grill seem to be bent or oddly placed, that is not the case and attempting to adjust them ( notice I didn’t say bend) will mess you up later.

Grillcraft has a web site here http://www.grillcraft.com/installs/i...install_id=166
It has a series of numbered pics, which make perfect sense AFTER you have done this thing once. I will reference the pics and give the rest of the story.

I would start with pic #12 which displays a short Phillips screw driver and pic # 13 with a hand full of Phillips screws. Where do these come from you might ask. From the bottom of the black lower edge of the bumper cover and there are 5 of them. I also took out the other 1 on each end of the cover. It seems logical to me to start disassembly there.

Next got to pic # 2 which shows where to access the next bolt to be removed. You can see the end of this bolt in pic #3. Pic # 4 shows them removing that bolt. It is a hex head bolt and it is 8mm. See pic # 5.

Next we remove the bolts in pic #6. We use a T-50 torx bit. They are not very tight and should present no problem.

Next see pic #10 and # 11. This is disconnecting the lighting in the bumper cover ( turn signal & front marker light). Pic # 10 is pointing out the turn signal connector which is removed by using a small straight blade screw driver and pressing down at the back of the connector and pulling it toward the back of the car.(Pic#11) One hand to pull and one to push down please. That’s all the hands I have.

One thing somebody forgot was the OTHER light connector in the same place. You can see it in pic #10 to the upper/right of the finger and in pic # 11 in the lower right hand corner. This is the connector to the marker light and is removed by squeezing the back end of the connector, on the bottom, and pulling toward the back of the car. thumb on top and index finger on bottom for lefties.

At this point we are almost ready to remove the cover as all the bolts and screws have been removed. The cover is now held on by tabs on the top of the cover (pic # 14 and #15) Which are simply pressed down and the cover is pulled forward BUT notice pic # 16 and # 17 which show the last things that must be disconnected.

the side marker lights are removed by twisting the socket counter clockwise and the pulling out. The temp sensor is removed by pulling it to the left. This is where a buddy comes in real handy for holding up the cover while you disconnect stuff

What to do with the cover? I have several bathroom rugs that the wife discarded but are real cheap at Walmart that I use to lay on the garage floor> They were real handy to lay the bumper cover on.

Next comes removing the middle grill and it is pretty easy.
Lay the bumper cover face down on the floor (rugs?) and notice that the chrome piece on the middle grill is held on by little metal tabs through slots in the cover and only 4 of them have silicon rubber on them to hold the chrome strip on. Simply peal the silicon off and pull the chrome off. Pic #20 - #24
The colored slat in the middle grill is just a cover over the actual bumper cover but it is held on by double sided tape . I removed that cover in my garage when the temperature was about 90 degrees and it came off fairly easy with steady pressure. There is no doubt in my mind that in the winter this would be a real PITA so a hair dryer or heat gun would do wonders. Do not worry about the tape left on the cover since you will be cutting that off anyway. Pic#25 - #26

Cutting off stuff – yikes!!!! Look at pic # 27 what they are trying to show here is the black strip near the bottom of the opening and the white strip which is the tape. Pic’s 28 – 30 show them cutting out the excess material and pic #31 shows the piece they removed. Pic # 32 shows that they were much neater then me cutting this out and let me say that my dremel did not work very well. I finished up with a sawzall

Pic # 32 – 34 lets you see the part that is later to be painted black

Pic #35 - # 38 shows removing the top grill and is fairly plain except to say that the little things that look like hex nuts are not and ARE a PITA and that is all I have to say about that.

Painting Pic’s , When painting be sure to mask everything well, if there are ANY gaps you will hate yourself later. When painting the areas behind the grill do not forget the actual bumper still on the car as that WILL show through and look like a row of teeth later. Ask me why I know this!

Mounting the grills: The upper grill is pretty simple, especially if you got the longer bolts; however if you were too lazy and decided to go with those provided here is a tip. The bolts will not stick through the holes very far and the nyloc nuts , which are about 11/32 will got to the bottom of the socket and not be able to reach the threads.
The easy way to overcome this is to get a paper towel or something like it and tear off small pieces to stuff in the socket so that the nut is held to the top of the socket. This is not rocket science but it works. NOTE: pics #53 – 58 seems to bear no relation to the current grills. My grills did not have these screws and sheet metal nuts July 07

Middle grill install:Pic’s 46 – 50 show them installing the middle grill but what the heck is that in pic #50? Are they using a screw driver or what? NO NO No That is a socket with a handle. I did not figure this out from the pics!!!!! What they are doing is using a socket to push the speed nut on to the post on the middle grill. What I did was lay the bumper cover on the floor ( rugs) with the grill posts sticking through. I placed the speed nut on top of the post and then set the socket on top. I then took a regular hammer and tapped the top of the socket VERY CAREFULLY driving the speed nut onto the post with ONE stroke. I could not believe that it was that easy!

This install can be very simple and straight forward but the pictures plus written instructions make it worry free. Well except for the sawing part.

Del Lamb NAM handle ozarkroots

 

 

Grillcraft???

 

Ozarkroots - Now that was a hell of a Install how to. May we quote you on that ? You must be a tech writer in the real world and if not you could be. Thanks for taking the time to jot down your ideas.

Misfitoy - Hi Sid

Chris MC40 - Grillcraft YES. You didn't think we welded those up in the back yard did you ?

Happy Fourth

Randy
M7 Tuning

 

Where's the correct location to re-locate the temperature sensor when installing the lower grill?

I actually used a zip-tie to attach mine to the right grill bolt/fastener so it was pretty much in the stock location but I wasn't sure this was necessary...thoughts?

 

Hmmm kinda...its late though.

 

I've Zipptied mine inside of the front bumper and let it protrude through an opening . I think as long as you have somewhat of a shot at clean air it will be ok.

Randy
M7 Tuning

 

Thanks Randy!

 

Great write-up. Many thanks in advance. I'm going to be ordering these for Vida.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...d.php?t=108558

/Candy