The Lotus Grand Tourers

Good morning Ma'am and all (happy jubilee !)

Messing about with my front bumper grill (which has rusted badly).

Is it supposed to be galvanised / black / chrome ?

I've spotted some s-type jaguar grill material in shiny stainless that I can make fit. Will the purists shrug at this idea ?

Also mine is screwed into place , but the other bumper I have is bonded (badly). What's standard ?

Regards,

Jason C.

The purists don't own your car you do, so if it works for you do it!
One of the joys of classic car ownership is improving over time our cars and not keeping them in the stone age

jasonc00001 wrote:Good morning Ma'am and all (happy jubilee !)

Messing about with my front bumper grill (which has rusted badly).

Is it supposed to be galvanised / black / chrome ?

I've spotted some s-type jaguar grill material in shiny stainless that I can make fit. Will the purists shrug at this idea ?

Also mine is screwed into place , but the other bumper I have is bonded (badly). What's standard ?

Regards,

Jason C.

I'm going to also upset the purists on my gold car. I think black mesh was standard and mine are secured by screws (and spire clips).

I'm going to use black powder-coated pressed ali material, so the holes will be much smaller and so stop more stones and also hide the wires to the DRL that I'm running via the radiator duct. I had considered bonding it on but will stick with screws.

I think shiny stainless is the way to go.

I'll post some pictures when it's done.

Comments on standard grills appreciated though.

Jason C.

I have used shiny s/s and the considered view from a number of people, myself included, is that it doesn't look as good as matt black. I think that it works for Aston and Jag because the grille is above the bumper. It is screwed on and I got it from www.themeshcompany.com

Nice.

The mesh company is around the corner (literally) so I'm going to a pop in and have a look this week.

Been trying different types of mesh that I can find and still unsure of shiny stainless or black.

I can always paint the stainless if I don't like it , knowing it won't rust.

Pictures are excellent. I likey the clear indicators. (Now I am sounding like a 19 year old car pimper.... )

AndyC wrote: I'm going to use black powder-coated pressed ali material, so the holes will be much smaller and so stop more stones and also hide the wires to the DRL that I'm running via the radiator duct. I had considered bonding it on but will stick with screws.

I'd be wary of fitting mesh with much smaller holes Andy. I recall reading a post years ago by someone who had done that and then found that it restricted air flow to the radiator far more than you might expect.

good point, I have orientated it so that the metal is as close to horizontal as possible, other way up would have resulted in more more resistance to air flow.

Well it finally stopped raining so here it is .

Stainless woven mesh from http://www.themeshcompany.co.uk (warrington).

Mesh needed to be bent to fit the opening and as it's woven the ends needed to be welded together to keep it's strength.

Fitted with screws (not in the picture) as per the original.

But looking exceedingly (thanks mr. Kipling) better than the old rusty grill.

Happy Excel'ing !!

Jason C.

Old grill





New grill

Nice work, it looks great

As an aside to this, when I had my TVR Chimaera, it had a black mesh grill. There were/was a company selling stainless steel replacements. They looked awful in my opinion.
Incidentally the mesh had a plastic "channel section" around the edge to make it look neater and so it didn't cut your fingers.