Well I just finished today, it took me about 5 hours to do since i had a huge mikita with a 4 inch blade instead of a dremel so i had to be very careful. I first took off the grille and traced the metal mesh with a sharpie for the cut.

I started to cut out the interior part of the grille

Then finished with some finess cutting


I then cut and painted the metal mesh black. I cut it big so I could trim it down to fit perfectly


I cit a little notch for the bottem screw mount


I mounted the metal mesh with some liquid nail, which worked pretty good and then let it dry

Here is the finished product

 

Very nice finished product, absolutely no denying that! I like a little more coverage to my grille, less see through, but that really gives me some ideas for mine...

How do you get to your hood release with the new grille, that's what I'm really curious about

 

I like it... It would look sweet to have the star like the rbp grill you were talking about before. If this were my truck I would paint all the bezels black but this looks good too. Nice job man.

 

I can fit a thin screw driver through the mesh and just push the latch over. Right before i was about to begin the project I thought oh crap how am I going to open the hood, so I made sure i was able to fit the screw driver.


I was also thinking about painting the bezels black but wasnt so sure how it would look with the white truck, I am going to be getting some smoked headlights also!

 

I don't know about painting the bezels. I like the chrome on these trucks, but I would paint everything BEHIND the grille flat black so as not to see it as much like in your pic. Looks great though. I was thinking the same thing myself.

 

looks good but it looks like nothing is there from a distance, maybe paint everything behind it blacK and the mesh silver?

but mines still better lol j/k i used the same big mesh you find on the 7X12 trailers and an emblem from a 2010 kingranch f350 its almost 10 inches wide, as far as the latch i cut the release lever flipped it to the top and cut some of the top of the grill away that is under the hood so i could fit my hand under the hood.

 

How did you guys mount the mesh without othe screws poking through?

 

i used a model 5 plastic welder and some of the parts i cut out then welded them back to the grill to hold the mesh in place, i think the other guy said he used liquid nails

 

Man more grille ideas. Looks good. If you paint it maybe do a "chrome" paint so it would still shine? Also I would paint it white if I painted it more of a Lightning style approach.

 

i got bored on day in the shop and was sitting there bsin with a buddy when i did mine took about 30 min to build, i was going to run with no grill at first because i've got a Nomex honey comb in front of the radiator to protect from rocks and mud, and i didnt need the grill in the way blocking the air flow. but now i've got double protectionmesh for the big stuff and the novex for the smaller stuff