Doing Front Bar

[Exomondo]

Hey guys,

I got the standard cut-your-front-bar evo x style cover. It's going on a white VRX and I'm putting black mesh behind the cut-outs, but I was just wondering if there are any nasty surprises I should try to avoid when slicing the front bar? How has the experience been for anyone who's fitted one of these?

Also for the time being I'm going to just cable-tie my number plate to the bottom of the front grill for now and after searching I couldn't find a consensus on what to use for a side-mount number plate. Everything I've read seems to infer that it's legal (im in victoria) so long as it's parallel to the front axel. Is such a mounting made for Aussie plates? (afaik the RRM one doesn't fit) or am I going to have to make one up myself?

Thx!

[Ral1rt]

Hi mate,
I have also done this mod to my RA. It looks fantastic but wasn't as easy as i'd thought but dont let that deter you I removed the front bumper as i had to remove the Polystyrene pads from behind or you will see them through the cut outs. I then removed the chrome outer ring. Cut out the the correct amount out of the factory bar then cut out the exo x cover to fit. Then Re-fit the chrome ring very carefully as it will very slightly be bent due to the new overlay sitting underneath it. I wish I had of taken pics to explain a little better.
If you need any more help i'd be happy to give you a hand.
I too had the same problem....Where do I start???? But I got through it and would be happy to share my info! And it looks great!

[tryg]

Exomondo, please do take pics of your mod... some of us would love to see the "how-to"...

[tadz0rz]

Hey exmondo

Im in Vic aswell and have my licence plate side mounted with zip ties. Yes it is illegal, but only because of the matter in which its secured, not where its secured

If you've moved your licence plate you would know that the original place for it had little metal mounting tabs. Those slide out of the square holes and what you can actually do is put them behind the grill and use the screws to secure them.

Hope that helps mate

[Exomondo]

thanks for all your help and advice guys. I'll take some snaps as I go along and post them up when I'm done. I'll likely do this between Christmas and NYE since I've got plenty of time off work

Thanks again, keep you posted

[Exomondo]

Ok so at the moment things are drying and curing so I thought I'd drop a few photos and an update.

I picked up some grill mesh from Autobarn and decided I'd go about this by crafting some mesh covers for the holes and glue them to the cover before I fitted it to the car. This way I could get the mesh right and just cut the holes in the bar a little bigger to fit it through.

So step one was to use the cardboard from the mesh (because i could bend it to fit the contour of the cover) and trace the holes onto it so I knew how big to cut the mesh.


I cut the mesh a couple of sections larger around the edges so I could bend it to be glued to the ridges on the holes of the cover. I just cut it with tin snips since the stuff is soft - but still very sharp!



A bit of Epoxy resin across the top holds that grill in place, then i turned it upside down and did the bottom edge just to be safe.

I trimmed the ends down a little bit as well so they were a bit more tapered but it's not necessary, you can just cut rectangular holes in your bumper.

The thing to remember with this mesh is that you only get one bend out of it, if you bend it wrong then try to bend it back it will be so weak that you can just tear it, i did this once and threw that bit out and started again, there was plenty left over anyway.

Eventually it was all nice and secured:


A little bit of time lapse here...but some explanation should do the job.
Before gluing the grill mesh to the cover i did the same trace of the holes onto the front bar, then laid the grill pieces over them and traced around those to get the hole size.
I figured with this method i wouldn't have to take off the front bar, I did however take off the plastic cover above the radiator just so i could see properly.
I cut to the outside of those holes to make sure I had enough space to fit it all through. It was easy enough with just a stanley knife, I was a bit hesitant when I saw the bar was about 2-2.5mm thick but it is very soft and was very easy to just slice right through.

So where it is at now, not really a shrine to sophistication but it'll do while the whole thing cures overnight:



Another thing to note is that the cover doesn't come ALL the way down so if you crouch down to the ground and look at it you can see a strip of white (or body colour), but it's only a few mm so I'll mask it off and use a bit of matte black spray, i was going to black out the bar first but that would've messed with the cover adhesives.

...hrm i've just realised i didnt pull those license plate screw hole pieces off...no matter, they sat flush anyway.

[tadz0rz]

Good work man

Have yo got any pictures of the finished product?

[Exomondo]

Ill pull off those stools in the morning once it's all cured properly and get some shots up

[tryg]

Nice write up.. you make it look easy and all your tips are appreciated. Like a pro!

+1 Well done!

[Exomondo]

Ok so here are the final pics.

The top left edge came away a little during the drying/curing so I squirted a bit of epoxy in there with a syringe and left it to set, now it's all contacting perfectly.



And with the license plate zip-tied (temporarily) underneath:


Even more of an excuse to grab those slimline plates ASAP was the fact that I ran over my front plate (it's pretty bent and scuffed...looks pretty obvious in the pics) in the commodore while the glue was curing...whoops.

[aspir3]

Looks good in the pictures.
Is there any chance you can take more photos from the side/ close up?

I would be interested to chrome one and fit it to my car.

Does this just stick over the centre of your bar, or do you have to cut the centre of your bar and fit this in? Sorry but I can not tell by the photos.

[krz]

looks good exomondo..
i did similar to mine as well as the zip ties.. lol
...thinkin where else to put it.. hmmm..

[Graham]

Sidemount for the win

I've been pulled up twice since I've had it and the police haven't said anything about it, I did get a comment on my front lip though :p

It looks good! I want this mod but I really don't want to cut the front of my car up and don't want my car to look too much like a fakevo.

Maybe putting vinyl where you are meant to cut the bumper or mesh behind the holes on the addon might save cutting the bumper.

Looks great though, well done

[tryg]

Graham, your car looks so close to an RA though!!!

Unless you knew cars, yours looks primo, like a fully optioned car.

[Graham]

I guess it does, I have been asked if it's a ralliart too

I could just get a RA bonnet and put a fake FMIC in there and it'd look even more RA'ish not that I would do that though