This may be of limited interest on NAM, but for those of you who:
a) moved to a CM/PM FROM an earlier MINI
2) used grille badges
and
d) want to reuse them, here's my DIY guide
Your mileage may vary of course.

The CM grille is deeper in section than the previous MINIs. As a result, the set bolts that you have from your old grille badge holders won't reach. Plus, the grille is at an angle from horizontal, worsening the reach issue.

The instructions below are specifically for MINIbee's outstanding grille badge holders with the old-school gear motif around them. The standard MINI badge holders are of a different design, so you would want to verify the threading to determine the right bolt to use in your case.



1. New hardware: The MINIbee badge holder utilizes M4 threaded bolt for the set bolts. Finding long M4 bolts without heads on them is hard. I planned on cutting the heads off but then realized it couldn't hurt having another tool-point, and i was glad I left them on. I used these M4 .70x50mm breakaway screws (breakaway not needed, it was just the longest rod I could find) and M4 x.70 nylon insert stop nuts. 2x of each, per badge.



2. Setting the Nut: To minimize your wrist-breaking, hand-numbing adjustment (assuming you didn't pull the entire grille off) it pays to set the first one in place and get the nut tight, then roll it back a half turn, to use as the guide for pre-setting the nuts on the other three. This saves you from having to do all that adjustment on each one. On these breakaway screws you can see it's a few thread lengths from the furthermost breakway sone on the screw. Now you'll have the other three ready to go.

3. Getting the Grille Open: as you may have read elsewhere on NAM, the grille is counter-intuitive to release. There are no tabs visible to pull in order to release the grille like there are on the older MINIs. You actually have to take a leap and yank the grille directly upwards, from the right side of the grille, to release those tabs. Then you can do the same for the more troublesome ones on the left side. I found I didn't need to go any further and remove the grille. This gave me enough play that I could pull the grille forward of the cover plate and get at the back of it.



4. Don't Install too Far Out: Your hallucinogen levels are your own choice. I mean, rather, not to make the mistake I did and mount the first one too far outwards from centerline. I put it at the point where the upper grille angry mouth turns downward.


As it happens, I made an erroneous assumption about symmetry. As you can see, that's an open space ont he right side and closed off on the left. No need to drill unless you want to.


5. Install Threaded Screws: I put the first badge in place, and located the screw and just threaded it two half-turns to set it. Then, you can spend some time getting the washer to set against the back of the grille. From there, I already had my nut set just so, screwed the screw itself in tight to the badge and then followed up with tightening the setting nut with pliers. Perfect! Now this is anchoring the holder in place and the second one is easier to thread in. Repeat on the other side, celebrate!

6. I should also mention a final word of warning: have a loooong magnetized tool handy. If you drop something, it falls all the way to the bottom of the bumper cover tray, and unlike my other two MINIS it wasn't as easy to get open. So, I just attached several strong magnets to a rod, extended it down, and snapped up the offending tool (in my case, a palm ratchet)

$4.00 in new hardware, about $2.00 in beer, and the old badges are on the new car, and all is well!