S1 Centre Rear Bonnet Grill - anyone else had this ?

[rfs1957]

The result of having the sills and scuttle changed, and the bonnet tweaked to fit, has left me with a quandry.

The natural position for the rear-centre grill is, I'm presuming, aligned with the rear edge of the bonnet.



In that way the chrome grill sits on the crown of the bonnet-sealing rubber.



My grill, with what I think are conventional fittings, ends up 11mm further forward than this edge, so there would be an unsightly gap.



It will unfortunately require some ingenuity, and some non-original fittings, to make this look passably correct and not a botched job.

Has anyone else had an issue like this, and what did you do ?



I'm intrigued by the pair of threaded 2BA bosses on the back of the grill, was there another way of fitting this on some cars ? I suspect that however I proceed I am going to have to use these, and get rid of the two ears that are now in the wrong place.

Forget anything about brazing/welding/TIG, this stuff is ZAMAC and quite impossible to modify.



One step forward, two steps back, it's The E-Type Shuffle.

[Allrand]

Yep, I have the same problem, and it's an original bonnet. Poor fitting repro part from the prominent supplier.

[Gfhug]

Is an S1 bonnet grille different to an S2? As mine has this extra panel behind it:

Doesn’t that force the grille further back? And the two are held together by those 2ba bolts/clips

Geoff

[rfs1957]

Okay, it was too hot to move outside, and this grill was going to irritate me, so I had a go at finding a solution.

It felt like I was trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, to begin with, but as things progressed I became more convinced, and the result is not bad at all.

I'm putting these pictures up just as a suggested approach for anyone else who is confronted with the same situation.

I believe this grill to be original or NOS as it is at least 30 years old, but I'm guessing that all the repro parts now have those 2BA tappings (or studs ?) on the back, and they turned out to be quite useful.

I first ground down the ears by 1.5mm :



and cut a 20mm strip of 15/10 mild steel to the longest length that would fit in the bonnet space, shaped to fit the chrome grille, bearing in mind that the chrome is not straight in any plane, so it takes a lot of careful draw-filing, and bending, to get a faithful espousal :



Engineers clamps on the ground-down ears hold the strip in place :



Two small angles were made, clamped with baby G-cramps - no longer on the Zamac grille - then brazed on, followed by two threaded inserts :







The result is pretty good, those 2BA threads in the back of the grill are a life-line in fact, and all that remains now is to decide whether to get it chromed and say it's original or just paint it the colour of the shell and hope nobody notices ..........







....... and so I can now go to bed and worry about something else