atomic350

Heres a DIY on the grille surround as I promised. It's not an easy job but anyone with a front bumper removal experience can probably take a shot at it. Front bumper comes off as most others.

Unboxing:
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Front view of the painted grille surround
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Rear view of the painted grille surround. *There are six phillips head screws holding it as you can see. The rest are clips that you have slightly push on.
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Side view of the painted grille surround. *For better view of where the screws go. Top middle bottom
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Remove the front cover after opening the hood so you can see the grill from the inside
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You can see the middle screw but the bumper enforcer is in the way.
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Raise the car up and remove the bottom cover and any other bolts and body molding attached to the front bumper.
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Remove the front wheels and remove the body screw where the front bumper and the fender meets. Its kind of hidden behind the plastic molding but you can push it aside to see the body screw. Do same for the other side. Once they are removed carefully pop it out so it detaches from the fender.
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Carefully lay the front bumper on the box the grill came in. Disconnect any wiring harnesses and remove the bumper from the car
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Lay the front bumper on a work bench or somewhere you can easily work on without getting scratched. Be very careful here as I lightly scratched my black pearl emblems moving the bumper around. Now that you have a very good look at the grill from the back. Start undoing all the clips and screws to dissect it... this can be quiet time consuming and may require a second hand to hold the clips away from retaining.
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Here is the stock grill completely disassembled. And pop in the replacement grille surround and reverse your steps from there and make sure you don't have any extra screws laying around...
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Grille put back on and front bumper back on.
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Close-up after installation. Look at that perfect match.
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Did i mention... perfect match? Haha hope you guys enjoyed my first DIY on this forum!!
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atomic350

It took me almost three hours to complete this install. Probaby spent most of the time just trying to 'dissect' the grill assembly from the bumper. Let me say, what a pain in the ***. But in the end it came out looking perfect match and I love the end result. You can follow me here on my build forum for more updates!

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/bui...ld-thread.html

Alius

Awesome DIY, just what I was looking for!

Do you really need to take the front wheels off? Can't you just turn the wheels to one side to unscrew the bumper-to-fender screw and do the opposite for the other side?

atomic350

Thanks, hopefully this will help some out there and no you don't have to take the wheels off for the bumper-to-fender screws. I just removed them for easier access.

Alius

Good to know, thanks a lot for this!