How to Make a Custom Front Grill (H-Badge Removal Technique)
| The first thing you need to do is remove the
bumper. For most people by now this should be a 5
minute process. With the grill removed, locate the 4
screws |
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| that hold the upper grill portion
to the rest of the bumper. Remove these screws and
then slide the upper grill away from the bumper. With
a sharp razor blade, cut out the H as shown in the
pictures. Be sure to leave four vertical cross pieces
and do not cut through those. Cut away the backing
pieces behind the H and try and do a clean job, keeping all
cuts as straight and smooth as possible. |
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I found it much easier to work with after I
removed the painted trim portion of the upper grill.
Since you don't want to wreck that part, take it off and put it aside with your bumper somewhere safe. |
| Once you've cut out the H and the
plastic behind it, you should be left with something that
looks like the above picture. Do not cut more plastic
out than is necessary or you will have to fabricate more new
pieces to fit in their place. |
| Now comes the trickiest part of the job.
The piece to the right is what you will need to design, cut
and build in order to fill the gap across the one center
divider in the grill. It is made from two small pieces
of 1/8" thick hardboard MDF glued together. This
stuff is very durable and very easy to cut and sand. |
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| I should have taken a picture of
the two pieces separated, but you'll just have to make do
with what you can of the pictures here. One piece is
about 1.5" by 5" and goes across the length of the
gap in the grill and fits underneath the horizontal cross
piece. The smaller piece is glued on top of the longer piece
and then sanded to match the shape of the original
grill. Then 'ears' are cut back about 1/4" from
the front and 1 to 1-1/2" on each side. This allows
the piece
to fit snuggly into the gap in the grill. It should
fit tightly without needing any glue at this
point. |
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It's hard to explain in words this process,
but you basically want to shape the wood to mold into the
gap in the grill so that it looks like it is actually a part
of the grill. I used a 150 then 220 sandpaper over and
over on this little wood piece till the shape of it matched
exactly the |
| curvature of the original
horizontal piece in the grill. This part is key to
making it look good. Spend some time sanding and
fitting, sanding and fitting till there are no gaps or
bumps, and the mold of it matches the grill perfectly.
If you totally mess it up, it's no big deal, just make another wood
piece and start over. Chance are, you've got plenty of
wood left over to make several of these until you think
you've got a good one that fits. I actually didn't
make my piece quite deep enough, as you can see from the
pics. It ended up being about 1/4" shorter in depth
that the actual depth of the piece I was trying to match it
to. I didn't worry about it though, because I thought
it looked kinda cool that way and added some individuality
to that horizontal plastic piece the way it curved in on the
back right in the center. But do what you want and
what you think looks best. |
| Once I felt that my newly molded piece looked
good enough to match, I used the epoxy to glue the whole
thing in place. I used ample amounts of glue on only
the underside of the grill piece, gluing the ears of the
wood |
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| to the plastic piece in
grill. Epoxy is great stuff because it's strong and
dries fast. After the epoxy dried I took some 220
sandpaper and sanded the wood while in the fitting to make
sure that there were no bumps and that the seem from plastic
grill to wood was completely smooth. Since there will
be gaps, and you probably won't get it perfect, this is
where the putty comes in handy. I used some simple
painters putty to fill the small cracks between the wood and
plastic. Then I let it dry and sanded it down. I
did this a few times still all the cracks were good and
filled up. Once it's as smooth
as you like, take some 600 grit to that whole surface and make
sure it's really nice and smooth. My whole grill was
kinda thrashed so I ran that 600 grit all over the whole
grill, up and down all the vertical and horizontal pieces,
smoothing out and removing any crap that was in there.
Your car may be newer than mine. |
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With all the sanding done, I then covered the
exterior-most portion of the grill (basically the part that
the painted trim covers up that you took off earlier) with
1" masking tape. This is just because I really
only |
| wanted to paint the front visible
portion of the grill, without having to worry about what's
really never going to seen. Besides, it will all be
black in the end anyway. I used several light coats of
quality gray primer, such as Rustoleum. Do not skip
this step! The wood and plastic need to be primed in
order to provide a consistent bonding surface for the black
spray paint to adhere to. This protects the wood from
water, heat, moisture, expanding, deteriorating, etc., while
being continuously subject the harsh conditions of |
| outside. The primer also makes it so
when you paint the rest of the grill black, as shown by the
picture to the right, the black will flow perfectly across
the two mediums (plastic and wood) without leaving so much
as a hint that |
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| the two are different. It's
always good practice to primer anything before before
painting. I also used Rustoleum's flat black spray
paint to finish this job. Several light coats, do not
gob it on, while letting it dry between coats at least 15-20
minutes. Follow the directions on your spray paint and
use good spray painting technique for a professional look. |
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When you're done, your grill should look
something like this. No more H and a brand new grill
with a brand new look for your Honda. |
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| My front bumper looks totally thrashed in this
picture, so please ignore all the rock chips that smother my
bumper. 5 years of highway driving are apparent on the
front of this car. I'd love to get the whole bumper
repainted one day. |
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| So as you can see, this gives
your old grill a brand new look. I haven't seen many
other people with this style front grill, mainly because of
the time it takes to produce such a custom grill, but I
think it looks dang sweet. |
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This modification is recommended for anyone
wishing to get rid of that last H emblem on their car but
don't want the expense of purchasing a new grill and then having
to get it painted to match your car. |
| This is the ultimate mod for the
DIY'er with too much time on his hands. |
| Here's a super close picture of the completed
grill. It's been on my car for about 2 months now
without any signs of wear and tear. I've washed the
car tons of times, at least once week, sometimes more
(although not obvious in these pictures, sorry) and water
and rain and |
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| even heat from the engine bay and
radiator don't do a thing to damage the integrity of this new grill. If you feel a little sketchy
about the whole |
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"wood and glue" on your car thing,
then use your own imagination and resources and try and come
up with a better solution. Honestly I was bored one
day and before I knew it, my bumper was off and I had
already |
| cut out the H from the grill, and
what was left was me trying to figure out a way to fix
it! And this was the result. First run.
First prototype. So far so good, and I've never been
happier with the looks of something inexpensive, or dare I
say cheap, that I
put on my car. |
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