Grill Cover Nuts

[losichu]

I have a 96 ti with the m-technic bodywork. It seems that some of those little tabs that keep the lower grill in place have dissapeared and as a result the grill itself has begun to crack and break. I'm attempting to remove the grill completely to epoxy it back together, but does anyone know where I can get more of them, and does anyone know how to get those things off? Also, is there anything that can be done if the plasting nubs on the bumper that line up the grill are broken?

[oakley]

welcome to my world..annoying aint it!! I hit a bloody badger and it caved (amongst other things) the grill in...luckily the grills in one piece but iv lost all the little metal tabs that keep it in place..iv just siliconed it back in and its stayed fine

[zboot]

I have no idea what the tabs look like, but would it be possible for you to epoxy some plastic pieces of roughly the same shape in their place?

[cooljess76]

check out ebay or jcwhitney for "aluminum mesh grille" and you can then trim it into shape and use wire to rig it up. My tabs were all still intact, so I just reused them when I upgraded my grille. I bought the large hexagon stuff from jcwhitney.com, in the hopes it would resemble a honeycomb pattern, but it turned out that the holes were actually more rectangular. I'm still looking around for a honeycomb shaped pattern grille, the grille I have now is silver and looks kinda cheap. I was going to paint it black, but I think I'm just going to wait until I find the one I'm looking for. They also sell the e36 M3 grille inserts on ebay, but they're plastic and just have a square pattern. But they are precut and designed to easily replace your old grille which is pretty ugly IMHO.

[oakley]

humm personally would stay well away from chicken wire grills but spose depends wot look ur going for!! Each to their own of course....Any main dealer should be able to sort u out the little metal tabs but if the small connectors are also broken then thats no help..The dealer will also sort u out the grill if u want the real one back..or speak to ipswich he was selling them a while back..again just remember the bits are attached to the bumper so with out replacing the entire bumper u'll still have to find a way of fixing it in place!!!

[cooljess76]

Originally Posted by oakley

humm personally would stay well away from chicken wire grills but spose depends wot look ur going for!!

Oakley, it looks like you have an M3 mesh grille on your Dakar ti.

Here's a picture of the mesh I'm currently using. I might paint it black since the silver looks sort of ricey. I bought this stuff at jcwhitney for $20 and they do sell it in an anodized black:

[oakley]

yep i certainly do and as the original post stated they had the m technic im taking it they have the same??.. i must admit the mesh uv posted looks better then most iv seen..but imo still ricey!! Would look better black though it is pretty similar in shape to the orig one..

[cooljess76]

My car is an M technic also and it came with plastic slats going across the opening. I don't think yours is the original grill. Are you the original owner? Perhaps your grill was replaced already by the previous owner which would also explain why the plastic tabs are broken on your bumper, unless they broke off when you hit the badger. I think Losichu has the same bumper as me. It's an M3 bumper, but instead of mesh it came with the horizontal plastic slats. BTW, I just painted the mesh black and I'm going to install it after the Superbowl. I'll post pics tonight.

[ipswich318ti]

he has put m3 mesh into the bumper

[cooljess76]

Maybe not, I just checked and there's 3 different styles that were optional for the M technic bumper. Mine was #8 in this photo. I removed it and installed the aluminum mesh pictured in my previous post.

Oakley's car has Grille# 29 pictured above. They sell them on ebay but they're made of plastic and IMO, the aluminum honeycomb mesh looks much better. I do agree that black looks better though, so I just primed and painted mine.

[cooljess76]

Here's a pic of my mesh painted compared to the bare aluminum. Big difference I think. Silver might look good on a white or silver car, but on black it stands out way too much. I think the black will look much better. I've also planned on painting my kidney grilles black. I found this paint at PepBoys that is actually designed for chromed plastic trim. It comes in a few different colors and creates an anodized effect. I'm going to use the black(smoke) on my kidney grilles.

[oakley]

mine is oem, and all factory fit for the bumper (apart from the carbon fibre gt splitter thats on there now and poss the small black lip above that as well but thats also oem)..I have seen another grill type with thick bars (poss 3?) across the front...i think (correct if wrong!) all the Dakar's came with the m mesh as all the ones iv eva seen are the same as mine...

[cooljess76]

Actually, yours is the first Dakar 318ti I've ever seen. I like it and I think it would look sweet with the 17" M3 DS's. I'm not sure if they even offered the Dakar ti in the US. I've seen a few Dakar M3's here though. My original plastic grille got covered in ice on the 2000 mile long drive from Michigan to California and cracked in a few places. I'm actually glad it did since I probably would have eventually removed it anyway.

[cooljess76]

Originally Posted by losichu

I have a 96 ti with the m-technic bodywork. It seems that some of those little tabs that keep the lower grill in place have dissapeared and as a result the grill itself has begun to crack and break. I'm attempting to remove the grill completely to epoxy it back together, but does anyone know where I can get more of them, and does anyone know how to get those things off? Also, is there anything that can be done if the plasting nubs on the bumper that line up the grill are broken?

I'm sorry we never really got around to answer your question. The parts you're looking for are called "SPRING NUTS" and the part number is: 64111364257. They cost $0.56 for 8 of them. You could probably get them at the dealer, otherwise try pelicanparts. They are picured as item# 10 in the exploded diagram I posted earlier. To remove them you could simply twist them while pulling as if you were trying to unscrew them. I wouldn't use pliers since you'll more than likely crush them. As far as replacing the plastic tabs that they slip onto, there's nothing really that you can do except epoxy it or drill a small hole and loop some wire through it like a bread tie or perhaps you could use a nylon zip tie.

[oakley]

Dont think they eva took the Dakar to the US.. they only brought a couple hundred into the uk, iv only eva seen 2 in the flesh and both were in passing so never actually been upclose, as it were, to another one..seen a few on the 'ol tinternet of course!!