butnut

I was just about to cancel my order from JT when the mailman brings my emblem! My last message from them was over a week ago saying it's ordered and will be shipped out. The emblem 'looked' real huge. Not used to seeing 'em that big..old school Japan style. It has a nice upward taper from the side view and is very heavy metal...coarse texture chrome letters with blackout connections. Kool. No screws. Very thick posts that are threaded. Luckily my 'magic screw box' had some short metric screws...no gearhead or modder should be without a screw box...any and all fastners are thrown in there when I work on bikes, appliances, cars whatever.
I used a piece of door guard molding as a backing for the emblem...rigid black plastic and perfect size. I found 2 thick washers, ground 2 sides flat and painted them black. The mesh holes I made for the posts was kinda loose...I wrapped 3M black tape around the posts to snug it up...worked good after some trimming. It looks good...different. Kinda more, 'hey, what kinda grille is that' than, 'holy crap, that looks killer'...I dunno, maybe if I painted the chrome like Satoshi...it does have the more 'off-road' koolness to it. I'll see how it grows on me. I gave a light color coating of black lacquer on my radiator and horns as this grille is real see-through. My wife kinda rolled her eyes and walked away...at least she did'nt say it was fugly. What do you guys think?

I made a Webshot album of some of the work in progress...
Sidemarker and grille mods...

Fink

Lets good man...I can't imagine how that would look on mine...hmmm..

Nice work!

Fink

rimpainter.com

now that's funny!

I like it man! It's unique, and makes you stare at it for a second. I saw it, and said, "nahhh, really?" Different, but cool.

doink

that looks pretty classy IMO. nice touch

Bob_98SR5

hey brian,

great work...me likes! thanks for taking the first step...err...cuts.

i think you're right: the silver grill/trim needs to be painted. i think what makes satoshi's grill look so good is that its got good color 'contrast' around the grille. that is, its dark around the emblem for several inches around the white "T O Y O T A" letters. thus, i think this mod will look really good on Highlanders.

bob

Corey

iTrader: (1)

Looks good Brian.
I like the word spelled out, that's why I like the '90 to '91 4Runner grilles.

Toyota should have kept the whole name instead of going to the T symbol.

butnut

Thanks guys. I'll let it grow on me a while. I do think it will 'pop' a lot more with a painted surround like Satoshi's. Yup Bob, the Highlanders and the newer 3rd gens with the painted grilles and bumpers would look nice with a blackout grille and white letters. But I do like chrome...I have a few paint projects coming up, I may end up painting it...time will tell.

Woodbert

Looks great Brian!

Alot of the LC's here have those grilles and I like them.

calrockx

noooooooooo! now i won't be the first one in this hemispehere to get that mod done to my runner!:cry:


but it's cool man, looks nice. i'm working on mine currently. i have the mesh, the center cut out of the grille, hope to get the rest done in the next couple weeks or so.

SpdRcr

I like the old school look myself as well. I never understood the new sombero emblem. I wonder how it look on a Tacoma?

butnut

Thanks Woody. Ah...I would have taken my sweet time on this, but I had a gap between my other projects. Good luck calrockx...you 're painting yours right?
Thanks Speed. The 'sombrero' (good name BTW) spells out TOYOTA in a stylized graphic kinda way. I think it's kool, but change is good too. I think it would look good on a Taco, but those letters are kinda big. But then, the old FJ40's had a small grille too.

Vato Loco

That looks real good! Your rig looks more aggressive now with that new grill. How much did the whole project cost you?

momo.75

I like it. Don't worry, your wife isn't the only one that doesn't understand us...

butnut

Thanks. Total cost...grille 40, emblem 30, mesh 5, misc fastners and aluminum 8, paints 8 so about 91bucks.

A+

looks nice.got that retro look

Bob_98SR5

Brian,

Well, I put the ol' Photoshop to work today and after looking at the pics below, I'm fully committed to doing this mod:

Current


Photochop'd


From the looks of it, Satoshi might have also used the original grill material. What do you think? It looks like the grate size is much thicker and closer together (smaller holes).

In anycase, great job, Brian. Anymore advice, let us know!

Bob

Cebby

How will that look in black pearl?

butnut

Looks real good Bob. By 'original'...you mean old Land Cruiser mesh? I got the smallest sized holes I could find, the thicker stuff had bigger holes and a lot of the Ebay mesh was aluminum...too soft and flexy, won't be rigid enough and would be difficult to weld if making a frame. I put in some captions (Webshots) of what I did durnig the build, but if you have specifics, PM me. Good luck.

Bob_98SR5

Brian,

Yeah, thats what i meant by 'original' mesh = Land Cruiser OEM mesh grill. Only Satoshi knows.

Cebby: this one is definitely not going to be black pearl'd. As you can see, the black pearl 'sombrero' (love that description) gets lost in the grill color itself.

Bob

FirstToy

The FJ40 mesh is alot thicker than what you guys have. Satoshi also doesn't have the "original" mesh.

I think the later FJ40 grilles came with molded plastic mesh

Good work butnut, I like it better than stock