Updated Pics - Gutter Guard Grill Inserts

jmichaelsjeep · **Posted:** Fri Jul 30, 2010 8:54 am

So I'm almost done with my custom gutter guard grill inserts, unfortunately right now I only have 1 pic:

I'm trying to decide though:
Should I:
1). Clear coat them and leave them the aluminum look?
2). Paint them black (note the Libby is all black)?
3). Put bed-lining on them and the grill (I figure it will protect them both from a lot of different potential hazards)? Plus it will start the bedlining process. :twisted:

So far I'm only into it for about $6 in materials. I bought aluminum gutter guard from Home Depot @ 1.79 a strip. Each strip made three slots, so I needed to just barely tap into the third piece.

I am likely going to have to do something more permanent for mounting, right now the slot frame is pretty tight and mostly holding it in place, but I have 1-2 slots that seem to have a corner that doesn't want to stay tight up against the grill. What has everyone else done for keeping these in place? I've heard zip ties (not sure exactly where though) and the old insert behind it.

Thoughts?

Cherrie 274 · **Posted:** Fri Jul 30, 2010 12:42 pm

I saw this and bought a gutter guard, then realized it would rust.So I used a piece from a sat. dish that is aluminum.I put it on the inside one piece with zip ties.

501 · **Posted:** Fri Jul 30, 2010 7:53 pm

Paint them black and use black zip ties to hold them in, that's what I did with mine.

jmichaelsjeep · **Posted:** Fri Jul 30, 2010 11:57 pm

501 wrote:

Paint them black and use black zip ties to hold them in, that's what I did with mine.

Do you have pictures of where you ran the zip ties through? I'm wanting little to no zip ties showing through...

501 · **Posted:** Sat Jul 31, 2010 12:45 am

I'll get you a closer picture in the morning but this is how mine look.

jnaut · **Posted:** Sat Jul 31, 2010 3:16 am

jmichaelsjeep wrote:

So I'm almost done with my custom gutter guard grill inserts, unfortunately right now I only have 1 pic:

I'm trying to decide though:
Should I:
1). Clear coat them and leave them the aluminum look?
2). Paint them black (note the Libby is all black)?
3). Put bed-lining on them and the grill (I figure it will protect them both from a lot of different potential hazards)? Plus it will start the bedlining process. :twisted:

So far I'm only into it for about $6 in materials. I bought aluminum gutter guard from Home Depot @ 1.79 a strip. Each strip made three slots, so I needed to just barely tap into the third piece.

I am likely going to have to do something more permanent for mounting, right now the slot frame is pretty tight and mostly holding it in place, but I have 1-2 slots that seem to have a corner that doesn't want to stay tight up against the grill. What has everyone else done for keeping these in place? I've heard zip ties (not sure exactly where though) and the old insert behind it.

Thoughts?

I kind of like them behind the billets because it's hard to cut those things without rough edges, and that way the edges are hidden behind the grill itself. Zip ties are really the way to go.

I prefer them to either remain silver, or give them a bright color. If you paint them dark, no one will see them and then, what's the point besides the fact that they actually do perform a minor service to your radiator by keeping bugs and debris out.

501 · **Posted:** Sat Jul 31, 2010 3:43 pm

One on the bottom

One on the Top

jnaut · **Posted:** Sat Jul 31, 2010 5:51 pm

501, is your grille bedlined?

501 · **Posted:** Sun Aug 01, 2010 3:39 am

Nope, I used Hammered gray paint. It has a 'texture' to it kind-of like the fender flares do.

jnaut · **Posted:** Mon Aug 02, 2010 7:17 pm

501 wrote:

Nope, I used Hammered gray paint. It has a 'texture' to it kind-of like the fender flares do.

That's... cool. Brand?

JeepinJarhead03 · **Posted:** Mon Aug 02, 2010 11:49 pm

i used aluminum screen door screening and painted it Buick black cherry

I drive a lot at night, so I've always had problems with my radiator getting, literally, full of bugs

haven't had to pop my grill out to clean my radiator out since the install

used zipties and stripped down bread twisties to attach it from the inside lol..

would have preferred to have it over the inserts in the grill, but I wasn't able to get the inserts to let go, and I wasn't about to break them in the process of removing them

Since my grill is sort of broken as it is (i'm the only one that's ever noticed it) Eventually I'll get a new grill and new inserts and do it correctly

aluminum won't rust, so either leave it natural, or paint it black or any other accent color of your choice

looks like ya did a good job on the install

Combat Truck Monkey · **Posted:** Tue Aug 03, 2010 8:17 pm

JeepinJarhead03 wrote:

Nice!.... the license plate has to go though! :ROTFL:

501 · **Posted:** Tue Aug 03, 2010 9:27 pm

jnaut wrote:

501 wrote:

Nope, I used Hammered gray paint. It has a 'texture' to it kind-of like the fender flares do.

That's... cool. Brand?

Rust-Oleum, it comes in a variety of colors.

JeepinJarhead03 · **Posted:** Tue Aug 03, 2010 9:33 pm

Quote:

Nice!.... the license plate has to go though! :ROTFL:

It's actually still attached to the fascia

which hasn't been attached to the vehicle in quite some time, still haven't fab'ed a front license plate mount for my TR front

jmichaelsjeep · **Posted:** Mon Aug 09, 2010 12:18 pm

WOW, it's awesome to see such a great response to this post. I've been a little MIA lately. Been spending a lot of time at the hospital this last week with my wife who has been pretty sick. She's on the mend though now, so that's great.

I'm thankful for all the ideas and pics. I couldn't really leave my billets in because a rock or some other road debri had already broken it enough that it looked like crap!

I did end up using the frame that the billets are part of, I carefully cut out the billets with utility knife, then ended up forming the mesh gutter guard so it would stay in tight using the same framework. So far so good.

I ended up sanding the grill, and painting both inserts and the grill with a bed-liner type product. So far the coat I did seems to be holding up, but I may want to add another coat, the mesh inserts look a little thin on coating. Everyone I talked to around home liked it better with the aluminum look, but I actually really like the matt black tough looking coating as it stands now! I'll post pics hopefully soon.

inklegg · **Posted:** Mon Aug 23, 2010 10:54 pm

501....where did you get that bumper bar you have your lights mounted on? I like it and want one now!

501 · **Posted:** Mon Aug 23, 2010 11:39 pm

inklegg wrote:

501....where did you get that bumper bar you have your lights mounted on? I like it and want one now!

I had a friend make it for me one Saturday when we were bored. I was at his shop BS'ing and it was slow so I asked him if he could do it and a little while later that's what we came up with.

jmichaelsjeep · **Posted:** Tue Aug 31, 2010 4:14 pm

So after roughly a month of not really much time to be on LOST

, I am finally taking the time to show you some updated pics of this Gutter Guard Grill insert process:

So here is the test fit image close up:

As you can see, I was planning on trimming out the "billets" due to a couple of them being broken due to miscellaneous road hazards. So my idea was to fold over some "excess" material, so the remainder of the frame that was attached to the billets, would hold the inserts into place.

Here is a view a little further back:

After an informal poll on this wonderful forum, I decided to coat the grill and the inserts with a rubberized undercoating product available at my local O'Reilly's, I'm sorry, I don't remember how much I paid, but not much.

Here are a few in progress pics:

As you can tell from this close-up pic, I bent the gutter guard material over to have enough material to be caught by the frame that previously held the billets.

And this shows the grill and all seven inserts painted and waiting to be installed!

And a close up view of the "finished" product:

A view a little further back:

And my lunch hour project putting the hitch to good use:

A lot more mulch than you'd think fits in that seemingly small trailer!:

I know I like the look with the billets, but this kept everything hidden, and solved my dilemma of a broken billet or two as well! And so far I've not had any issues with the inserts staying in... If I do get a big test with something large hitting it, that will really tell me if this will hold up without zip-ties.
Also, including the cost of the coating and the gutter guard, this cost was under $30!

feedback?

FYI - I like that hammered metal paint look!

JeepinJarhead03 · **Posted:** Thu Sep 02, 2010 3:49 pm

Looks really nice, you did a good job dude

Durability, if your grill is anything like the sh** magnet that mine is, you will find out soon enough unfortunately can't tell you how many time's ive watched golf ball sized chunks of asphalt bouncing down the road while saying outloud to myself, stay off the hood stay off the windshield otherwise i dont care, then BLAMMM! right in the grill, and I get to keep it to since the mesh I put ends up catching it for me a long with bugs etc lol

I need to do some repairs to my grill, it's actually broken you just can't tell it

btw, that mulch looks better than we get around here, our mulch always has junk in it

jmichaelsjeep · **Posted:** Fri Sep 03, 2010 12:48 am

Thanks Jarhead - I appreciate the comments. I have a little OCD when it comes to doing things myself, whether it be on my vehicles or my house, etc. Thus anything less than perfection is not an option for me. I was a little worried it wouldn't turn out how I wanted, but I do like how it looks AND it has certainly caught a lot of stuff already!

about 1/2 of my 2 hour drive that I typically make to my company's headquarters office is under construction, so it gets its fair share of additional testing!

I know what you mean about cursing when something bounces up, I'm usually less lucky when I'm driving our car, we have a chip in the windshield I still need to get fixed for exactly that reason.

The mulch is indeed pretty good. This particular stuff does occasionally have "junk" in it. The city mulches branches/ brush they go around and collect from our homes (we put it out to the curb and they come around and chip it), then they dump it in a big pile in various locations through the city and we can come and get it for free!

If I would have had to pay for it, this probably would have been $200 worth of mulch! There was a little bit of bits and pieces of random stuff, but for the most part, it was pretty clean.

Updated Pics - Gutter Guard Grill Inserts

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