Someone stole my grille!

[Shermio]

So I was doing my assignment at Uni today (University Of Auckland, Tamaki campus) and after about 4 hours I returned to my car to find my grille gone. I know it didn't fall out on the way there since the two zip ties were on the ground in front of the car with a single cut mark on them.

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/33542684/

It not that Im angry about it being stolen, it's more of me being annoyed. I got the stainless steel mesh for free and still have enough to make about 5-7 more, but it's a waste of time to make another one with exams coming up..

In a way the silver lining is that someone found my work so be so good that it warranted stealing, and that there were some big dents in it anyways from a truck that dropped gravel on the motorway... so if anyone has seen a grille on trademe that looks like mine drop me a note. It was custom made to fit in a MK2.5 NB it was curved horizontally and vertically like a kidney bean... But then again someone could have cut it up for a another car (hopefully it was not another MX5 owner!)...

Anyways, since Im procrastinating anyways Im off to hammer out a Mark II grille this one will be much better than the first I reckon, from what experience has taugh me

[zorruno]

Shermio said on 05/20/2006 06:50 PM:

So I was doing my assignment at Uni today (University Of Auckland,
Tamaki campus) and after about 4 hours I returned to my car to find my
grille gone. I know it didn't fall out on the way there since the two
zip ties were on the ground in front of the car with a single cut mark
on them.

Hmm, I'm sure people will keep an eye out for you. Trademe is the most
likely place for it to end up I'd say...

I remember a few years ago on the US list there was talk about someone
stealing parts off Miatas and selling them on E-Bay - mainly park lamp
assemblies, frankenstein bolts, and badges - stuff that is easy to
remove from the outside. He was caught by people in the Miata community.

If you are building another grille, there is a good NB template floating
around on the net somewhere - if you don't have a template already. Not
sure how different a 2002 grille is from earlier NBs though.

Maybe they were trying to steal something else... like those 6kW of blue
lighting tubes you seem to have behind them in the photo?

cheers

--
(z)

[Posted via External Email]

[Shermio]

I made my own template and luckily I have kept it The MK2.5 are quite different than the MK2 NBs it's got a sharper top that curves down as apposed to the oval shaped MK1 NB

And just as an update the new grille is back on and is much better than the old one

As for stealing the lights, They would have stolen the strobe light right behind the grille before even finding the blue LED bar... It's well tucked away as adviced by a police friend

[R LTD]

Hi
Sorry to hear about the theft of the grille. I'm interested in getting a grille for a NA fitted with factory spot lights. Have seen them on a number of cars and suspect have been made by owners. Does anone know if they are made as an aftermarket accessory in NZ.

[Shermio]

Most of the grilles are made by owners because they are relatively cheap and easy to make, there are aftermarket grilles that you can buy, most of them come from the states.

Seriously, making one yourself would take about 2 - 3 hours max. all you need to do is (Provided you still have your baby teeth/ tie down hooks):

1) Tape pieces of A4 paper so that it covers the front of the mouth.

2) lightly trace the outline of the mouth with a pencil, it doesn't have to be too accurate at this point.

3) Go get a cardboard box and disect it so you have yourself a flat piece of cardboard and cut out the tracing of the mouth and transfer the strip of paper to the cardboard.

4) Trim the cardboard, at this point and try fitting the cardboard template back into the mouth. Trim where neccessary, this is where it needs to be accurate and also make sure it is loose, leave a gap of about 5mm all around the cardboard and mouth.

5) Go out and source yourself a piece of grille material (Depends on your taste I suppose, sheet metal shops are the first port of call, they usuall have off cuts that are very cheap, haha flirting with the office ladies also helps to obtain freebies ) If that's too much hassle for you go to repco and buy their standard Mesh Around $40.

6) Trace the cardboard template onto the mesh (There are 2 way you can make your mesh and at this point decide how you like your grille to finish, you can either fold the mesh along a margin so that it doesn't scratch the paint (Leave a 2cm Margin around your mesh as you cut) or used some window moulding to surround the sharp bits (Don't leave a margin when you cut) using a vivid and get cutting (Angle grinders are great )

7) You can then bend the mesh a little to give it some shape using a anvil or if you are like me and working out of a smaller workshop a sledgehammer mounted on a worshop vice and a small hammer will do the job

Attach your new grille to the baby teeth with zip ties and you are done

P.S> I don't know about your factory fogs... you could either hide them behine the grille or make cutouts for them, I currently have aftermarket strobe lights which are sitting nicely behind the grille