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Golf lower bumper grille on GTI

Jimbosantos96

Passed Driver's Ed
I'm not a very big fan of the honeycomb grill so I'd like to change it out to the lined once from golf... but the thing is, I'm not that good with DIY stuff. A few people on here have posted their cars with it but not a very thorough tutorial. Any tips?? Thanks!
 

Tony48

Go Kart Champion
When I was looking into doing this project I could find almost no good pictures of the process. After I finished I put some decent pictures of the process in my build thread. I have more on Photobucket as well. I will say that it is an extensive DIY that takes quite a few hours of experienced labor to get looking good. It's probably not a project an average DIYer will want to tackle.
 

ahard48

Ready to race!
This was pretty time consuming, but patience was key! I didn't really find a DIY either. Just youtube'd how to take the front bumper off, then brought it in my living room and chipped away at those stubborn tabs while watching a show/movie or something.

I started with the fog lights then got to the mesh grill.

Youtube video (disclaimer: did not watch to see if this was helpful :) )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66HQQbY2Feo&t=21s

EDIT: just saw this thread, refer to it for bumper removal...
http://www.golfmk6.com/forums/showthread.php?t=110755
 
Last edited:

Tony48

Go Kart Champion
I wanna try it out but I don't have much experience with diy, but is it really THAT hard?

Cutting out both grilles, dremeling/sanding/melting to as close a fit as possible (it doesn't fit that well), solvent welding/plastic welding the pieces together, epoxy putty to fill cracks and build up areas, sanding epoxy putty back to round/smooth surfaces, final sanding, and painting. Here's some progress pics. Check my build thread for more. If you have more questions it's best to comment there so I will see. I also have a lot more pictures that didn't get posted.

IMG_20170212_125352 by Tony G, on Flickr
IMG_20170217_211512 by Tony G, on Flickr
IMG_20170217_211447 by Tony G, on Flickr
IMG_20170222_212045 by Tony G, on Flickr
IMG_20170219_135548 by Tony G, on Flickr
IMG_20170219_143001 by Tony G, on Flickr
IMG_20170224_222717 by Tony G, on Flickr
IMG_20170226_011340 by Tony G, on Flickr







 

Tony48

Go Kart Champion
^^^ turned out real nice. What FMIC are you running?

FMIC is a Forge Twintercooler. I'm no intercooler expert but it's a quality piece.

Thanks for the compliment, I'm very happy with the grille. When I purchased the Golf lower grille I didn't know what I was getting myself into and thought the swap would take 2-3hrs. I didn't even think I would have to paint it :lol:. I quickly realized that wouldn't be the case. I probably ended up with 20+hrs of work into it. I could do another one a bit faster because I would know where to cut. I wasted a few hours slowly trimming down & test fitting, making decisions along the way. It's far from perfect but there are no flaws that can be spotted without kneeling down and getting your face within 2ft of the grille.
 

riceburner

Autocross Champion
^wow that's impressive, i thought that grille was just a direct swap in/out!

To the OP, i went through this recently by having to take my grilles out for a different reason.

Regarding just that, it is a total pain in the ass!! The bumper itself is cake to get off, after that you can proceed to remove all torq screws inside the bumper. From there you work from the outside in removing the fog lights, then fog light grilles. as you do this, you should find that the fog grilles, lower grille surround and lower grille all come out 'as one unit' which you then can dissect on the floor with the bumper out of the way.

So work from the outside to the inside, but the other tip is to take some various flathead screwdrivers to gently pry at all the tabs before getting into it, to get them somewhat ready to unfasten themselves, otherwise every time you work one clip off, the next one might clip back in. The use of screwdrivers was crucial, in my opinion. Luckily, no tabs actually broke on me, as they are all quite flexible, and I had no issues getting everything to snap back into place afterward, with no signs of misfitting or damage from the outside.

Have fun and do it on a carpet to avoid damaging the bumper's paint. Be patient and methodical, as it is REALLY stubborn to get apart, but the end result for you should be worth it.
 

Tony48

Go Kart Champion
^wow that's impressive, i thought that grille was just a direct swap in/out!

To the OP, i went through this recently by having to take my grilles out for a different reason.

Regarding just that, it is a total pain in the ass!! The bumper itself is cake to get off, after that you can proceed to remove all torq screws inside the bumper. From there you work from the outside in removing the fog lights, then fog light grilles. as you do this, you should find that the fog grilles, lower grille surround and lower grille all come out 'as one unit' which you then can dissect on the floor with the bumper out of the way.

So work from the outside to the inside, but the other tip is to take some various flathead screwdrivers to gently pry at all the tabs before getting into it, to get them somewhat ready to unfasten themselves, otherwise every time you work one clip off, the next one might clip back in. The use of screwdrivers was crucial, in my opinion. Luckily, no tabs actually broke on me, as they are all quite flexible, and I had no issues getting everything to snap back into place afterward, with no signs of misfitting or damage from the outside.

Have fun and do it on a carpet to avoid damaging the bumper's paint. Be patient and methodical, as it is REALLY stubborn to get apart, but the end result for you should be worth it.

^^This is good advice for getting the lower grille apart. Working from outside to inside is key. It took me foooooorever to get it apart the first time because I had no idea what I was doing. Fogs come out first, then the large plastic pieces that the fogs screw to. Then start working out all of the clips with a flathead to remove the whole fog shroud/lower grille/lower grille surround from one side to the other. I posted these instructions awhile back that may help someone out with getting the fogs out at least. I took a bunch of pics thinking I would make a DIY for this but haven't gotten around to it. Here are some of them to give you an idea of what you're up against. I couldn't find any pics like these on the internet so hopefully they help someone out. Photo dump:

Inside view of bumper when you pull it off of the car:
IMG_20170225_143417 by Tony G, on Flickr
Fog housing removed:
IMG_20170225_143456 by Tony G, on Flickr
Fog light support removed:
IMG_20170225_143826 by Tony G, on Flickr
IMG_20170225_150025 by Tony G, on Flickr
IMG_20170225_144533 by Tony G, on Flickr
IMG_20170225_144515 by Tony G, on Flickr
 

ahard48

Ready to race!
Its awesome what some time, patience, and a thought can turn out to be. Looks good man. The feels of self accomplishment!
 

Jimbosantos96

Passed Driver's Ed
Cutting out both grilles, dremeling/sanding/melting to as close a fit as possible (it doesn't fit that well), solvent welding/plastic welding the pieces together, epoxy putty to fill cracks and build up areas, sanding epoxy putty back to round/smooth surfaces, final sanding, and painting. Here's some progress pics. Check my build thread for more. If you have more questions it's best to comment there so I will see. I also have a lot more pictures that didn't get posted.

IMG_20170212_125352 by Tony G, on Flickr
IMG_20170217_211512 by Tony G, on Flickr
IMG_20170217_211447 by Tony G, on Flickr
IMG_20170222_212045 by Tony G, on Flickr
IMG_20170219_135548 by Tony G, on Flickr
IMG_20170219_143001 by Tony G, on Flickr
IMG_20170224_222717 by Tony G, on Flickr
IMG_20170226_011340 by Tony G, on Flickr










Thank you so much for this bro! It seems like I'm gonna have to take a few days with this, but it'll be worth it. Front definitely looks much better with that grille instead of the honeycomb.
 

Jimbosantos96

Passed Driver's Ed
^wow that's impressive, i thought that grille was just a direct swap in/out!

To the OP, i went through this recently by having to take my grilles out for a different reason.

Regarding just that, it is a total pain in the ass!! The bumper itself is cake to get off, after that you can proceed to remove all torq screws inside the bumper. From there you work from the outside in removing the fog lights, then fog light grilles. as you do this, you should find that the fog grilles, lower grille surround and lower grille all come out 'as one unit' which you then can dissect on the floor with the bumper out of the way.

So work from the outside to the inside, but the other tip is to take some various flathead screwdrivers to gently pry at all the tabs before getting into it, to get them somewhat ready to unfasten themselves, otherwise every time you work one clip off, the next one might clip back in. The use of screwdrivers was crucial, in my opinion. Luckily, no tabs actually broke on me, as they are all quite flexible, and I had no issues getting everything to snap back into place afterward, with no signs of misfitting or damage from the outside.

Have fun and do it on a carpet to avoid damaging the bumper's paint. Be patient and methodical, as it is REALLY stubborn to get apart, but the end result for you should be worth it.



I'll keep this in mind,'I don't wanna end up breaking it haha
 

Inevitable

Passed Driver's Ed
I ended up doing a full front bumper swap with a Golf/JSW. It took almost as much time in cutting and grinding to get it to fit as it probably took you to build this grille.

I do miss my GTI bumper every so often though. Someday I'll find a replacement and swap it back.
 
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