Current progress so far
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Where I will be building my diablo
Where most of the important bits come from
The stuff it all bolts to
What makes it go
What makes it pretty
The cars nervous system
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Who really cares?
Stuff that will not fit anywhere else
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Grilles

Clicking on the images will open a larger version

I had ordered Parallel's grille set to complete the car, but was dissapointed as when these parts arrived, they simply didnt fit. The parts were too short and too narrow, plus they were not bent to the correct profile of the rear of the car.

This was a shame, as they were quite well made and had a good thick coat of plastic on them. Not being able to contact PD over this period, I resigned myself to making some replacements.

First I bent up some 4mm steel rod to the shape of the radiator apertures, You may find as I did, that they are slightly different sizes by a few millimetres. I then welded on some posts at the bottom and brackets at the top. The brackets should be as small as is possible, as they are visible on the car. There is no real way around this as once the rear of the car is finished, you need some way of mounting the grilles, and not being able to get fixing behind them, this is the only way.


These are the grilles after the wire has been attached to them. Its simply expanded steel wire. Its cut with tin snips, but be very careful as the edges are razor sharp. Aluminium wire is too soft and does not hold its shape well enough for this part, although would be much easier to form.

The steel trimmed oversize to the frame, and bent very carefully over the wire former so as no to distort the frame. I then used pliers to crimp the wire completely over giving a secure mounting of the wire to the frame.

Be careful when you cut the steel as it is directional. What would happen if you did not heed this advice is that when the parts are fitted, one grille would look to have smaller holes than the other due to the viewing angle. So make sure that the wire is in the same orientation on both grilles. Especially as they are both visible at the same time.
Fitting the grilles is easy. Here you can see the two grilles laying on top of the bumper ready for installation.

Two smal holes are drilled at the bottom of each aperture for the bottom posts of the grilles to locate into. The grille can then be swung into position, and the two holes for the top mountings are then also drilled. I made some captive fixings by welding nuts to stainless steel bar and glassed this into place. Its a good idea to make these parts captive due to the location of the fixings. Once the rear of the car is fixed together, you are not going to be able to get a spanner or anything else into this area easily from behind.