Here's mine done with tape...



and a bit closer...



....Les

 

Just peel and stick over the stock grill. I did however decide to remove the stock horizontal grill slates, just keeping the stock chrome trim which these suckers are taped to.

 

fog/driving lights *behind the grill*... hmmm... So... (strokes evil beard) how are those mounted anyway? *wink*

 

I like the look, Les (obviously, since yours looks like mine ).

I don't know if y'all have heard this, but I'm posting it here with the assumption that many who hit this thread are themselves contemplating a mod to their grille. I've been advised by folks at two different dealers that the ubiquitous MINI windshield chips (see many threads elsewhere at NAM) are exacerbated by the MINI aero kit. I guess it helps pebbles hug the car's profile a little too closely or something.

In any case, my mod gave me the aesthetic impact I was after, without jeopardizing my windshield.

Of course, I'm passing along hearsay RE: the risk with the traditional aero kits. Perhaps others who've actually had them installed could chime in with confirmation or denial. As for me, though, I like what Les did!

 

Sorry, but I think the classic chrome grille rules.....
I love it, had to post..

 

more or less, what tape did you use as I'm looking to do this to my grilles this weekend. Looks good!

davn8r, did you just replace your stock grill with a black MINI stock grill?

 

It's in this thread.

...Les

 

Yep. Before I knew about the tape trick (clever!) or had seen any of the fancy aero kits, I had an idea in my head about how I wanted things to look up front. So I bought a black grille -- here on NAM, now that I think of it -- while my MINI was still on the boat, had it shipped straight to the dealer, and had it switched out before I ever even picked the car up.

What you want to do is hang out with the black MINI owners club and wait for one of 'em to get aero kit fever...

Parts is parts.

 

Me too! I like them so much that I tracked down a 4-slat old-style chrome Cooper grille for my MCS. . .

 

the 3M tape - is really unbelievable. If you stick it incorrectly - you need to run a razor blade between the two pieces to seperate.

 

hmm, now you're scaring me Bart.... How much do replacement grilles cost? I may just buy new ones in black as I like the flat chrome surrounding on the 03+ cars...

 

AS QUOTED ^^^...CHOWS4US




Steaks...anyone..??...heeheehee...

 

Ok well, I realized I had some extra stripe vinyl and it is more than enough to do the grill slats in black. So I measured each slat roughly and measured the thickness. So far I've only done one slat, the first one on the upper grill, and it was a PITA. It came out like shyt. I'm sure the others will be easier as they don't have the curves of the first one.

BTW I'm doing this on the car, how exactly do I take the grill off the car so that I can take the slats apart and make my life easier...

 

You may not wish to take the grill off as the little hooks are brittle (well, they were on my '02) and break!

....Les

 

So then how did you manage to get the blackout to come out so good? I went back outside to look at it again and it got a little better but still has a lot of air pockets. I'm hoping those will come off with the heat before nighttime comes cause the car has to look good tonight lol.

 

I bought mine from Classic MINI for $45.40 (complete bonnet grille assembly with chrome surround) and $13.52 (single slat in bumper grille).
See this post (#46): https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...777#post669777

If you want to preserve the original grille to reuse or sell, it's a bit tedious to unscrew the nuts from the 11 attachment tabs without damaging them.
If you don't need to save the old grille, it would come off very quickly by simply cutting off the tabs.

 

Thanks for saving me the time of contacting ClassicMINI about a price for the upper and lower grille assembly. Theres something about this mod that I like more than the Aero Kit Grille. The fact that the black gives the car a sportier look, but at the same time the slats give it class somewhat, or rather, doesn't make it look too sporty. Its perfect for the new direction of my cars future, hehe.

P.S: Your grilles don't look very shiny, what color did you order them? I like the non-gloss effect.

 

These pupppies were like 125 bucks and come in black, chrome or carbon fiber look. In your case Peter at MyMini has them and you can take'm off the wall and place them on the car to see how it will look.

 

The finish is actually gloss, but it didn't show in that photo. A different view below. I would also prefer non-gloss. The slats are made of a flexible black plastic. I've been thinking of rubbing down the slats with a fine steel wool, which should remove the gloss.

The part number I listed in the other post was for a black grille. The complete assembly with surround is available only in black or chrome.

 

Thanks, I will be placing an order for the complete assembly, upper and lower with chrome surrounds, with ClassicMINI soon I hope.

 

same experience here. after breaking the two corner clips and still not getting the center undone, i gave up (for now) on removing the chrome trim to get a better shot at the grill slats. and after trashing the post on the first of the self threading nuts that hold on the whole grill assembly on, i decided to wait on having a replacement grill ready b4 i take this one off.

then after wasting 4 strips of black vinyl getting 3/4 of the way across a slat then stretching it too much and not being able to get a grip behind the slat (since i didn't remove the grill) to fix it, i looked at the crappy result i had and ripped it all off for now.

after 2 stout dewars on the rocks with a twist, i stopped being pissed about it and decided that i could wait a bit longer for a black grill until i was ready to spring for a replacement, either in black already (euro mini one) or paint a new one myself then swap it out.

usually DIY doesn't challenge me, but the vinyl tape on the grill was a *****..

 

When I changed my grill to black, vinyl tape wasn't being mentioned in the forums yet, and people were painting their grills. After reading about the difficulty of both removing the grill assembly and detaching the slats, I was very happy to discover the black MINI One grill. A bonus was the surprisingly low price.

I wanted to sell my chrome grill, and I was able to carefully remove all of the self tapping nuts in about an hour, with very minor damage. I put a blade under the nut to provide outward pressure, then twisted it using a socket from a socket wrench kit. I think it was 10mm. If you don't need to save the old grill, you can clip it off in about 5 minutes.

 

Here is my grill using black vinyl not tape it worked pretty dang well.

 

Here's mine - I used vinyl tape that I purchased from a sign shop for $20. That got me enough tape to do the MOD twice - I saved the excess for next year or the year after, assuming that eventually it will get chipped or faded and will need to be replaced. Instructions are in THIS THREAD:

BEFORE -


AFTER -