03tacoman's Satoshi grille

Before I even get into what I have done, here is the link to the page that I read before I put my grille together so I did my best to follow what tacomarotto did in his thread.
http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/1st-gen-tacomas/222360-satoshi-mod-1st-gen-write-up-lots-pics.html
I just like posting my own threads and also think it might help some of you to have more pictures of the project (even though tacomarotto had a shit ton in his )
I bought another grille, set of headlights, corner lamps, and blinker lamps all from another tacoma member. (stay tuned for my thread WITH pictures of the free blinker light mod OP by BlackDawg)
this is what I have done so far, vacation is this week so I will be finishing soon!

Some of the stuff I started with. GOOD idea to have a mask it helped a lot during the fiberglass. And the headphones were because of the dremel

cut out the insides of my grille with a coping saw because I didn't want to take a chance using a jigsaw and cracking the plastic

then used the dremel with a sanding blade on it to smooth down the inside edge of the grille wherever it need it (highly recommend using a dremel makes this part a lot easier)

I did three layers of fiberglass. put on one layer about every 45 minutes and left that to dry all night then did the bondo the next day so it had plenty of time to dry

After my first layer of bondo

Put the grille face down and using the sanding blade for my dremel I trimmed down the edge of the fiberglass

sanded the first layer of bondo then put another layer on (just trying to fill in low spots now)

you can see how the edge of the fiberglass is smooth. (i used a razor blade to trim it up as well as the dremel)

in between layers of fiberglass then bondo I cut off the triangles and then sanded them down.

I was anxious to see how the mesh I bought looked when after I painted it so I went ahead and painted the mesh cutouts after I sanded and drilled ziptie holes in the sides of the triangles that will hold the mesh to the triangles


That's all I have for today. Tomorrow hopefully I can finish the bondo and fit the mesh to it and paint everything!

 

Awesome thread thus far!!! I'm hoping to pick up my mesh soon! Then ill be doing this myself. Looks great so far!

 

I just finished mine. Looks good already haha

 

got all the way to the first coat of paint tonight will have pictures up soon

 

painted the mesh after shaping it to the back of the grille and drilling holes wherever possible to put zip ties

first coat of clear

ALL DONE!

I don't actually like the way it looks with this mesh, but if it is something any of you are interested in I am willing to sell it I'm located in southern maine

 

how much with trade of my factory grille so you can has one for your truck?

 

I still have my original one on my truck. I bought this one as an extra but thanks anyways

 

Question on the grille. How do you open the hood since the lever (stock location) is thru the grille. But how much you want for it. I want

 

I haven't actually looked at that closely yet but i know it's possible i think you have to reach under and move the hook instead of being able to pull up on the little tab like before.

I have never sold anything through tacoma world before so I am not sure how that works what's your payment method and how the hell am I supposed to ship this ? haha

 

I just took some pliers and moved the tab backwards a lil bit on mine

 

Green backs and I'm from mass I can drive

 

I bent my hood latch lever straight up instead of forward. I took it off and put in a vice to bend.

 

well take a ride on up here! we can take some pictures of our trucks too for TW if you actually drive this far to buy it i'll sell for 50. I am in Topsham maine it's next to Brunswick.

 

i'm not sure what you mean by that do you have a picture?

 

I don't have a pic handy. After you pop the hood in the cab, you have to press the latch release in the grill to unlatch and open hood normally. The unlatch lever interferes with the satoshi since it is made to fit in stock grill gap. It wanted to poke through my mesh. I had to bend it up instead of out front. Now, I can slide my hand in between the hood and grill and feel for it to open it from above the grill.

 

no need for a picture now I got what you mean! thanks that just saved me a lot of time if I ever decide to mount it instead of sell it haha thanks

 

I'm up for that. Is Topsham near the NAS? Im all for a road trip 211 miles

 

Yeah the brunswick navy station? that shut down a little while again but yep it's the next town over I could meet you anywhere in topsham or brunswick!

 

but like i said before, the grille is not perfect on the inside of it where I had to cut out the grille and do bondo, it works perfectly though and is solid. Just if you wanted it to be scratch free you'd have to sand it a lot more and repaint I would say. But it definitely does it's purpose if you want to just mount lights behind it.