Rear Bumper Mesh Simplified

[YikeGrymon]

Recently I hit upon what I felt was a simpler and easier way to go about this.

THIS being rendering the rear bumper vents looking more "finished." Or at least no longer looking as though something's missing. Here's the middle three of mine, completed.




I saw some pics of this effect a while ago, in a few different threads, and thought "Yes, that is indeed what's missing."

This is a pretty fine approach: http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthrea...ight=rear+mesh But I could never find the bendable metal hook things referenced in here. So I quit thinking about it. Note that this thread contains a link to another thread that gives the dimensions of the pieces of front-center bumper vent mesh that you'll need to cut, though. Useful.

So like a year later I saw these "mini peel-n-stick hooks" in either the Home Depot or Blowe's, and something made me stop and look at them. Then it clicked that maybe I could use them somehow for this. They come with little rectangles of that double-sticky-sided foam tape that you stick on the back of the hook and then onto the wall or whatever. I started thinking that I could use these with twist-ties (the kind with plastic-coated wire, of course, not the paper-coated wire POS ones) to hold mesh pieces in place.




One advantage of this method is that you can use much smaller pieces of the mesh itself, which is useful if you screw up when cutting them to size. Which I did, because the way the little cells in the mesh are staggered messed me up and I realized once or twice that I was not cutting straight. Sub-optimal given that the front-center piece cost nearly 30 beans. Tin snips proved the best thing to cut with. But still, the pieces sized as in that other thread are just right to start with.

Anyway here's a shot of the four hooks in place on one of the curved, outboard vents. Note that one of them is on there sideways. This is because some parts of the plastic back there are not as flat as others, and you can't stick the whole surface down unless you turn it 90 degrees. I figured this was no big deal, since the idea is to get the twist-tie around the shorter part of the hook itself, where it sticks out away from the backing piece (rather than the longer part that sticks UP if you mount these on a wall as intended). Those black dots on there are from when I was eyeballing it up with the mesh, to see where the shorter parts of the hooks should end up so that the twist-ties loop through the mesh in the right spots. I used four hooks on each of the outboard vents and on the smaller center openings, and six on the larger center one.




And here's the same one with mesh and twisties in place. Give the ties one sorta loose twist first, to get each piece in place the right way, then go back and tighten each one with a few more-snug twists, then bend the twistie out of sight. You can see here that at first I didn't get the upper left one onto the shorter part of the hook so much, like I was talking about just above. Easy to fix if you're under there, though. For the hooks that are not turned 90 degrees (I think 18 of the 22 I used) the twistie falls right into place around that shorter part of the hook, of course. Yes, a heat gun is definitely needed to shape the mesh for these outboard spots.




And there you have it. The hard part was finding a mess of BLACK plastic-coated twist-ties. Mail-order only, it appears. I got a bag of 100 (5" long, which are really a bit longer than you need for this) for $4.50 or something.

Another lil' project complete. This method results in those pieces being on there pretty snug. Plus they're easy to remove for waxing or other serious detailing, if you're anal enough to approach it that way (like me). Can't really get to them with the car on the ground, but most of us who own these cars probably also own ramps, so.

[blinkinbanana]

So awesome!

[MatadoR32]

(Checks URL, sees this isn't the Civic forums)

Am I missing something here??? Sticky strips and twist ties??

What the hell happened here?

[VincewagenR32]

although this is a good idea i would like to see the long term on those stickies. I have some and they can not seem to stay on the walls long enough after a 3 month period. Being that these are on a car expose to road conditions i don't anticipate a long term use for them. but it would be great for shows and adding that little extra touch for sure

[YikeGrymon]

although this is a good idea i would like to see the long term on those stickies. I have some and they can not seem to stay on the walls long enough after a 3 month period. Being that these are on a car expose to road conditions i don't anticipate a long term use for them....

Actually that's a very good point, and I was wondering about this as well, initially. And for a while after that.

The instructions with the lil' hookies say to clean the surface well with rubbing alcohol, so I did. And I forgot that the sticky-foam pieces they come with are not "little rectangles" but are actually strips like 2.5" long each. The double-sided sticky part is only about a third of that.

And why did I forget that? Because well, I confess... I actually did all this 14 months ago. It's true, August 2011. These photos are from the other day though. The hook packet shot I found on line.

But: They give you strips with the double-sticky section like that so there's a nice tab sticking out from under the hook once it's stuck to the wall, so you can pull it outta there for that "easy non-damaging removal" that they show on TV (for some similar product that I've seen). Not a bad idea. But yeah I snipped those strips to retain just the double-sticky part before I used mine.

Anyway, I did all this 14 months ago, yes. At the time I had only a bunch of plastic-coated twist-ties that I'd saved over the years to neaten up Wire Spaghetti, like under my desk here (computer wires etc) and behind the TV and the stereo. Most of these came from packaging of electric or electronic things. Most were white, I had only a few that were black.

So I did this up at the end of last summer. Then I got back under there again a month later to re-arrange some of the twisties so that none of the white ones were on the bottom of the mesh pieces. Hardly a huge deal, but they were visible and did stand out clearly and looked sorta odd. (I did own up, above, to being fairly anal, didn't I?)

Sometime over this past winter I found the on-line source for a packet of all-black twisties, and ordered. Figured I'd change them all to black at some point. Plus I was wondering myself how the adhesion of the hooks would hold up. PLUS a few of the twisties that I'd used were sorta scrawny, etc. I mean I did just have a baggie of quite varied ones, from not throwing them out.

My "normal" routine, if there is such a thing, is to do the big, really serious wash/wax after the end of Bug Season every year. Did this last week, took those mesh bits off for that, replaced them using the "real" twisties.

I was kinda surprised myself, but none of the hookies had come loose. After everything was clean and nicely waxed and put back together... that's when I was inspired to take a few photos and share.

So, yeah, very good point about the adhesion and the elements and all. But it seems that if you follow the instructions and clean with alcohol, they'll hold up. Also I guess the tension on them from a twist-tie isn't enough to bother them much.

[blinkinbanana]

You could always use 3m double sided foam tape, or epoxy the hooks to the bumper.

[YikeGrymon]

You could always use 3m double sided foam tape, or epoxy the hooks to the bumper.

Roger that. Though I think the double-sided sticky-foam pieces that come with these hookies ARE the 3M stuff. And in fact my original thought was to try those first and use epoxy if they didn't stick. But like I said, they stuck surprisingly well, were nicely attached after more than a year. And we definitely have extreme temperature variations where I am throughout the year.

Actually, just general info... I've found that Elmer's Stix-All is a damn fine choice for applications that are exposed to the elements. Waterproof, stays flexible, doesn't get brittle or crack like epoxy does sometimes. I've used this for all kinds of Car Chit. One fine example is my home-made VW center caps for a set of old Flik Arctic wheels (or maybe it's "Artic"). These are just the VW center caps wit the snap-in prong thingies broken off the back, then the resulting disks sanded flat and glued onto the face of the Flik center caps (Flik logo peeled off). Can't go wrong. Probably an old trick though.

[soeuroithurts]

can we see a picture of the whole rear of the car to get more of an idea of how it looks.

[YikeGrymon]

can we see a picture of the whole rear of the car to get more of an idea of how it looks.

I guess. Stay tuned.

[GLI_DRIVER]

I want to "redo" this mod (PO did it) whenever I get my rear bumper repaired. I still held onto the precut grilles too. Thanks for the motivation and good idea with the 3M tape I sure have plenty of that.

[Killdoc]

Here is what mine came with.

[YikeGrymon]

Here is what mine came with.

That looks pretty cool against blue. Same in front?

[YikeGrymon]

Okay so here's some crappy photos showing the whole thing. I had some trouble getting these to come out decently. Probably because of the way the mesh is back IN there (shadows, eh). Plus I've got my dingle-berry painted black (that sounds gross). And the back of my muffler also. So there's less contrast under there, I guess is what I mean.

I tried this on a sunny day (here) and another day when it was cloudy. Neither set came out any better than the other.

Anyway if you up the brightness on your screen and zoom in some you might get a better idea what it looks like. Also, I know there are some other shots of this sorta thing in this forum someplace. I mean that's where I got the idea. The ones I remember were also Reflex Silver. Then again I suppose they could be gone now....

[YikeGrymon]

I want to "redo" this mod (PO did it) whenever I get my rear bumper repaired. I still held onto the precut grilles too. Thanks for the motivation and good idea with the 3M tape I sure have plenty of that.

Yeah you know you could likely do this with that sticky-foam tape and anything that's shaped kind of like those hooks. Anything with a flat surface and something projecting up away from that.

Hey aren't you the guy who bought my spare-tire-well foam hunk a while ago?

[Yak Meat]

Where r people acquiring said mesh for the rear?

nvm, figured it out... buy a single mesh front center grill piece and molest it.

[Kstyle]

Guess I don't see the reason for this

[tjm0852]

Guess I don't see the reason for this

It matches the front bumper mesh inserts and covers the dingleberry as well.

[Kstyle]

Ah, dingleberry coverage... that I can see.

[YikeGrymon]

Guess I don't see the reason for this

Sokay. You don't have to.

Ah, dingleberry coverage... that I can see.

YEAH but you can still see it through there. Hence the black-painted dingleberry. And actually once I did that (prolly 2 years ago) it made a contrast against the lower part of the back of the muffler. Hence the high-temp black on that.

Basically... on a RS... leave the DB alone. For RS + unpainted DB + unpainted rear o' muffler is pretty much the same net result as painting of both. Oh well.

I did up the rear mesh because those openings in there always looked sort of nekkid to me. And I'm generally a PG-13 kinda guy.