It's been 4 months but here I am again. I still have no plans at this point to make these in the near future but I want to post a walkthrough like I said I would. I wanted to do this a lot sooner but I've been busy with work and across country for a while. I was going to try and make another one of these grills a couple months back so I planned on waiting until that was done, taking pictures along the way in order to make a nice detailed walkthrough. Part way into the construction of it I bailed on the project and didn't end up with many pictures so I'm going to use what I have saved from the past. I bought a honeycomb insert to make the grill with, expecting the same thing I've ordered in the past but the insert came pretty trashed. It was made in a mold and had a bunch of excess plastic on every single inside side of each honeycomb. I started trimming it all out with my dremel and it just got ridiculous. There was no way to make it perfect by hand and after paint sits on that, you're gonna see imperfections in the reflections and sunlight. Keep that in mind when trying to buy an insert to make a grill with, but I'll touch on that later.
This whole process is pretty time consuming, but it's without a doubt doable. It's one thing to set aside time and put in your full blown effort to make one of these for your own car, but it's another thing to try and make a business out of it and mass produce them by hand. With some time and patience and only accepting exactly what you want, you can make this happen with the materials I'll list out.
Materials:
SEM Patch panel adhesive (search it on amazon): There's a double cartridge gun that will make it easier to use this stuff but it's around a hundred bucks and not worth it for a one time use. Use something to press out an equal length bead of each part. It's a two part material. It's expensive but this stuff is awesome and can be used on anything. It will bond metal to metal and hardens in around 30 minutes.
Ford Crown Victoria Front Grill: If you're lucky you can find them for $20-$30 on EBay. Like I was saying earlier though, I bought one before that had a bunch of ugly excess plastic from the molding process in each of the honeycombs. Maybe call the seller and confirm it's a quality product. They're made of a hard pastic and are really durable. You won't need to worry about it breaking or anything. This insert will only fit an '05-'07 style Legacy grill as the '08-'09 grills are around an inch taller and this insert doesn't work out. You're looking for this grill(e)?
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f178/nospmoht04/crownvic.jpg
'05-'07 Stock Legacy Grill: Forum members are selling them randomly or you can look up online junk yards, they have them too. I've got a few myself and may post them up eventually for sale. Be care not to get one completely encased in chrome as some will come like that and it's a pain getting paint to stick to chrome and it's better to remove the chromed areas for a more durable grill in the end.
Dremel: Makes hacking up the stock grill way easier. Probably a necessity in the end.
Sandpaper: Get various grits (60, 120, 240, 360). Don't NEED all of them but at least 2 of those will be necessary.
Bondo: To fill in voids and smooth out transistions from Crown Vic grill insert to the Legacy grill.
Adhesion Promoter: A good idea to use this on slick plastic surfaces as it'll help the primer to stick to the plastic and help with chipping or flaking paint.
Plastics Primer: Good plastic to paint bond.
Primer Filler: High build primer that will hide imperfections and allow you to sand and recoat repeatedly until you have a smooth look. Don't lay it on too thick or you'll end up with chipping.
Satin Black Spray Paint: I used Rustoleum Matte Finish Custom Shop. Use what you want but make sure to follow the instructions on the can for recoat times on the adhesion promoter, primer, primer filler and paint. Use the same brand for all of them or you could run into trouble with adhesion it won't look pretty it you mix different based paints together. Also spend the $3 on a plastic spray can trigger. Your finger will get tired and you'll end up with ugly drip marks without it. It makes a world of difference.
'08+ Subaru Emblem: Search around online and you can get one for around $40. It's crucial to get one '08 and above because the Crown Vic insert has an area laid out for an emblem to be placed and the older version Subaru emblem won't cover it completely.
Jeweler's files: I used these to file down the hard to reach places where the Crown Vic piece attaches to the Legacy grill. You'll see when you get going.
Toothpicks: Used these since they're cheap and nice and small. Used them for once the patch panel adhesive was mixed up I could take a small glob and tuck it in between the Crown Vic insert and the Legacy grill where they attach at each point. Then file, add a bit more, file, bondo, sand, primer filler.
Large Plastic tub: I bought a cement mixing tub from Home Depot. It doesn't have to be deep but it needs to be large enough for the grill to lay face down in it and lay evenly.
Bleach: You'll need quite a bit of it, maybe 6-8 gallons? It's pretty cheap at the grocery store, maybe $2 a gallon. Get the store brand.
Walkthrough for '05-'07 Custom S402 Style Grill:
First take your '05-'07 Legacy grill and pop the emblem off. I put the entire grill in the oven and put it on about 175 degrees. Leave it in there for 15 min and check it out. The idea is to heat up the rugged ass double sided tape that's used to stick the emblem to the grill. Use a butter knife to get under the side of the emblem and pry up a bit. Be careful, its surprisingly easy to nick the side of the emblem. You won't need the emblem for this project but it's nice to save. Slowly work the emblem up from one side and reheat it as needed. It may take a few oven rounds to keep it heated as you go.
Use a dremel with a cutting wheel to cut out the interior of the stock grill. Cut down on the left and right side "wings" and cut across the top and bottom of the center piece that houses the emblem. Zip off the 4 connection spots on each side.
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f178/nospmoht04/300.jpg
Once you get the rough cut done and the center is removed use a paint pen and draw around the inside of the grill a nice even line to cut along. This pic shows the "bottom" side already cut but the "top" side has the green paint pen mark showing how I cut it out.
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f178/nospmoht04/302.jpg
You want it to end up looking like this:
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f178/nospmoht04/303.jpg
Trim up rough edges with a file, dremel or sandpaper. Now you want to take your large tub and lay the grill faced down in it. Pour in enough bleach to cover the chromed portion of the grill. With the tub I used I needed 2 gallons per "round" of bleach. The whole point of soaking it in bleach is to removed the chrome from the plastic. By taking the chrome off it brings it down to bare plastic so the paint and primer can stick to plastic rather than a slick chrome. The chrome areas will foam up into a black material over a day or two and you'll have to pull the grill out and scrub it off with a wire brush and rinse it down. Get rid of the bleach and pour in new bleach. Eventually the chrome will start turning green, and then copper. It'll take a good 3-5 rounds of this depending on how worn the chrome is to remove all of the chrome from the grill. You can skip this step but this is going to make the grill last way longer and make the work worth it.
While the grill is soaking you can take the Crown Vic insert and cut out the middle as close to the edges as possible so it doesn't end up being too small.
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f178/nospmoht04/308.jpg
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f178/nospmoht04/307.jpg
Now comes the fun part. You need to flip over the insert you cut out from the Crown Vic and cut it down at an angle with the dremel until it fits into the Legacy grill the right way. You'll need to keep trimming it down and sizing it up over and over. Notch out the top so it sets in right and angle the sides and bottom so it sets in right. Don't take off too much at a time because once it's gone, you have to build it up later with patch panel and bondo if you want it to look good. Here's a pic of it half trimmed when I sized it up at one point.
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f178/nospmoht04/fitting.jpg
You'll have to keep doing this until it sinks into place the right way. Keep looking at the lengthwise and top to bottom, looking down it to make sure it's all even and straight. You'll have to press down the right and left sides with your thumbs to push it all down flush since the Crown Vic insert doesn't have the exact contours that the Legacy grill has. Once you like it you need to get it set in place nice and sturdy. I used some clear packing tape to hold it exacly in place. Wrap a skinny piece of the tape around these spots and pin it right down so it's touching on all sides.
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f178/nospmoht04/fitting-1.jpg
You'll probably have to put a second set of tape strips closer to the outer edges so the edges make contact with the sides of the grill.
Once you have the thing touching on all sides sides and you've looked at it 572 times to really make sure, it's time to apply the adhesive. Choose 12 or so spots around the edges and mix up the patch panel adhesive. You've only got about 15 min before it really becomes unworkable so mix it up and spread it on in different points to hold it down. It takes about 25-30 min and you can handle it no problem. This stuff is strong as hell and an hour after you apply it you'll have to slam it on the ground repeatedly to try and separate it. Once it hardens pull off all the tape because it wont separate. Now you'll need to lay it on lightly on all the connecting points as neatly as possible as to not cause a bunch of rough spots. Lay it so it's not too noticable so later when it hardens you wont have to work it down by hand.
Get all the connecting spots looking decent and blend some bondo over them if you need to. It helps smooth it all out for when you paint it. Sand any bondo you use.
Get everything the way it needs to look and give it a coat of adhesion promoter, once that dries a thin coat of primer. Follow directions on the can and use some primer filler after that. Make sure everything you're using is designed for plastics and not metals or other surfaces.
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f178/nospmoht04/primed.jpg
This is what you should be working with. I taped off the emblem spot to leave a bare plastic area to adhere the emblem to later. Once the filler is dried sand it down. Only spray it on the spots that really need it. You might need to hit rough spots a few times and sand them down a few times but get everything nice and smooth because the final paint will bring out any blemishes.
Once everything looks like you want the final product to look like, put a few coats of the black or whatever you're doing. Keep in mind your color isn't going to hide anything. Any mistakes are gonna shine through so make it right. Once everything is dry, peel off the tape on the emblem spot and use some patch panel adhesive to stick the emblem. Make sure it's straight. It should look something like this:
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f178/nospmoht04/015.jpg
Give everything a few days to dry before putting it on the car. You should have something like this:
http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f178/nospmoht04/011.jpg
Installation and all is up to you, and if I forgot anything let me know. I think I covered most of what you need but if there's anything a lot of people are hanging up on, post it up in the thread and I'll respond so everyone can see rather than each individual question through PMs.
This is a good amount of work and maybe some of you guys can see why I couldn't make over 50 of them by hand but like I was saying before it's without a doubt doable and worth it if you really dig the look.
Again, sorry for not getting this up sooner, but I guess better late than never?
Good luck and lemme know how anyone makes out. Let's see some finished products! I'll see ya in a month
Yep you would absolutely be next on the list
