1996-2000 Honda Civic: Aluminum Mesh Grille ("Type-R Grille")

[msilage]

TRY AT YOUR OWN RISK, I'm not liable for anything you messup, i took a chance doing it myself. Ok here it is Start by getting all the supplies you need ready. 1. Aluminum Gutter Guard (5.99 for 6 pieces of it from Home Depot 2. A small bladed saw 3. Black Marker 4. Wire Cutters 5. Sand Paper (to sand what you cut off the grill) Take off the back part of the grill and get your saw out, cut the bars connecting from the border of the back piece to the middle around where the H logo is. You can sand it down a little when your done cutting if you want. Take a black marker and holding the mesh up sorta eye where you think is enough height and length and beging snipping away with the tin snips. Once that is done put the mesh on the back, get a pair of wire cutters or small wire cutters and cut where you may need to, the mesh tends to block the screw holes and the little clips from the front, only cut enough so you can wrap it around the edge of the screw hole for more support, thats what i did also make sure you cut the middle of the bottom part a little wider in the middle Here's Completed Product (ignore the engine, its a dx till i get my vtec head) any questions you got you can get me on aim - mdsilage

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[98CoupeV6]

Thanks for posting, good job on the grille

[whiteEJ8]

Looks nice, thats exactly how I did mine except I painted mine flat black.

[luti]

Thats exactly how I did mine, except I used black window screen. I wasnt sure if mine was goign to hold up to time and the elements, but it's been on for about a year and still looks great.

[ElectronBlueGSR]

exactly how i did mine cept i used black gutter guard lol

[bruce_91zx]

I ended up having 2 now, one from last summer and just one recently, 1 with the emblem epoxied on top, 1 without so i can interchange. GJ on the writeup. Another thing I wanna add is when you cut and assemble, figure out what side of the mesh looks better, since it comes kind of concave one one side and convex on the other.

[96GreenCivic]

It looks like a good project for me as a noob. I am going to give it a try . How would you do the bottom part of the grill?

[coletrain25]

Nice and clean install, Thats a good write up too.

[EddieK]

can you please teach me how to take off the grille??? there are circle things that hold it together? know wut im talking about? hmm.... is it okay to just cut them off? or how will it all go back together?

[msilage]

take a flathead screwdriver and just pop the middle part of the clips out, if you cut them off you won't get it back on, there might be 2 screws on the bottom of the grille holding it to your bumper also.

yea good call too bruce

96greencivic - i tried a few different methods for the bottom grille but the gutter guard was the right length but not enough height to my liking(and also didn't want the edges of the grille to scratch my paint up) so i went to Grille-Tech.com and bought the lower grille piece, when i get home today i'll take some pics and post them up. If you decide you like the Grille-Tech.com grille i suggest going on ebay and buying it, much cheaper than if you order it directly from them and also difference is order from the site it could take 1-3 weeks, i recieved mine(i got it on ebay!) in like 4 days.

[96GreenCivic]

This DIY is really close to another Type R Grill posting, but the other was for a 97 Civic and I have a 96. The major difference is the way the grill comes from the factory.

For some reason on my 96, the painted part and the plastic cross bar pieces are all one molded ABS piece. On the 97, it looks like the painted bezel can be seperated from the black cross piece. Unfortunatly, mine isn't like that. So here is what I did. PS. Like for the 97 DIY, try this at your own risk. It took me a little while to figure it out with some trial and error.

Tools:
*Dremel tool with a cutting disk and grinder(this is way easier then a hack saw)
*black trim paint
*wire gutter mesh
*metal snips (I found them easy to use, especially when you need to fine tune the mesh)
*epoxy

1: Take off the bumper with the 6 plastic screws on the top of the bumper, one phillips head on each wheel well. (don't forget to turn your tires to one side to make this easier) Now take off the two lug nuts underneath the bumper in the middle area.

2: With the bumper removed, there are 4 phillips head screws underneath the grill holding it onto the bumper and two clips, one on either end of the grill. Be careful prying them out.

3: With the cutting disc, start cutting off the cross bars and the Honda insignia. Be careful not to run the Dremel too fast. Stay on the 4 setting for the variable drill. Then cut off the two lower tabs that seem to me don't do much. I just cut them off. Now take the grinder and grind down the burrs and smooth it out.

4: Next I taped off the black area and gave it a shot of black trim paint to hide some scratches. It gives it more depth that way and my grill is pretty old. It looked a little faded to me.

5: Take the wire mesh and outline the shape of the hole with a marker. Choose which side of the mesh you want facing out first. Start snipping away and get a rough estimate leaving at least 1" to 1 1/2" all the way around. Make cut outs to accomodate the screw holes and begin molding and bending the mesh to the opening. I just used my hands. The gutter mesh is fairly soft. Once you are satisfyed with the grill, I painted mine black or you could leave it silver.

6: I tried crazy glue to hold the mesh to the backside of the grill, but using an epoxy would be better.

7: Reinstall in reverse order.

Ps. this version leaves the mesh set back a little in the opening unlike the usual mesh grills you see that come up right to the paint. My version gives it a lot of depth. If you have any questions, email me.

Like everyone says, DIY if you can't afford it! I think mine looks awesome. I'll set up some pictures when I get my new rims and paint the side skirts.

[msilage]

96greencivic - heres pic of grille-tech grill

and you can also see the grille i made for this DIY

[lkailburn]

this has got to be one of the best looking DIY 's I've ever seen. nice job man. i'm doin it, home depot here i come!!

[msilage]

thanks and it turned out good luke

[illicon2003]

Looking nice..Think I may try to do that one day

[lkailburn]

yo ill--deffinitly do it. its worth every minute. here's mine

[illicon2003]

I tried to do my 2000 ex last night........... Was incredibly hard to attach the gutter guard to fiberglass outer ring since the fiberglass is so thin.........and on my car the ring only attached to the stock grille which then attached to the bumper.......I gave up...it was way too frustrating. I could have gotten it to work, but it woulda been out of alignment and would have scratched the paint like whoa........Anyone done one for this particular car?

[acunat]

Is there anyway to DIY the lower grill? (I've already done the upper one) I read that the hinged gutterguard is wide/tall enough. I thought it would be easy, or like the upper. But, I took off the bumper to double check and I realized there wasn't anything to attach the mesh to, and if I did want to do something like the first one, I'd have to do a lot of sawing.

I know that you can buy grill inserts from grilltech. Could someone tell me how to DIY one of those and then install it?

[skit]

can you see where you cut the bars? is it noticable?

[DaUthaWhiteMeat]

another problem with 2000 EX here...anyone do this successfully? I'd post pics of mine, but it's horrible lol.

[JET]

how did you take out that black frame piece? i popped out the 5 or 6 screws (not really screws, but plastic thingys) do i just pull or what? and which direction does it come out? its a 2000 ex

[DaUthaWhiteMeat]

you have to take the front end off

[JET]

how exactly?

[DaUthaWhiteMeat]

ugh...i think like 4 screws...look under the wheel well...and i think maybe under the bumper...i left most screws off so i can take it out with just the well screws and the plastic tabs on the top

[ryceryder85]

i did this with my 4 door honda civic LX and i must say that i am pleased with the results. It took me 2 dollars and about 1 hour and 30 minutes.

[JET]

any1 got pics on how to take off bumper on a 2000 civic ex? plzzzzzzzzzzzz

[DaUthaWhiteMeat]

to take it off? dude...it's like screws...just looks around and find all the screws...

[ryceryder85]

take off the plastic screws near the grill, then the ones near your tire, then the ones under your car. Takes like 3 mins

[TRAVIS91]

hey man you should change yer intake manifold... if u do it give it alot more get in go....i like the grille though very sweet.

[ryceryder85]

did anyone try to match the grill with a front bumper grill? if so tell me how you did it...