BENTLEY SPOTTING

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Saturday, June 09, 2012

Brewing a Mesh Grille for the Bentley Turbo R

Today I brewed up a mesh grille for my Bentley Turbo R.

Home brew in fact. Not from the factory. Not mass made. You can not buy a six pack of these.

Why and how you many say? The original vains on the Turbo R are fine.



Why? Because I can, and I like mesh grilles on Bentleys. They are more traditional. Like a W.O. or a new GT.

And it's my car, and what did you do this afternoon?

How? Well, firstly go over to another Bentley drivers place who has a couple of Bentleys.



Then maybe have his mate come over who last month home brewed a mesh grille for his Bentley Continental R.

Thanks so much guys for all your help today. I really appreciated it.

I think between the 3 of us we owned 6 or 7 Bentleys - but I only have one.



Three bolts removed the Bentley grille. A lot easier than I thought.



And here is a rear view of the vains. Ready for some cosmetic enhancements.



The vains are in two parts, held on to the grille surround by 8 bolts.



Vains extracted, ready for the new ingredients.



As with all recipes it is best to carefully measure, so it comes out just right.



As usual with home brewing, you tend to recycle competitors products.



This time an appropriate template for the mesh.



Then it is to the bolt cutters to snip snip snip. A little rough at first.



Discarding excess as appropriate.



Then test placement in the grille surround, hoping you did not not add too much yeast.



Then it is to the fine tuning of the hops.



Now the addition of the key element. The centre post. Held on by cable ties. Yes it is home brew.



It is certainly coming together.



I could have tapped in aluminium edging all around, but electrical tape edged it quite well.



Now to the marrage of mesh to surround.



Cooked up some aluminium brackets to hold everything in place quite well. 8 in all, using the same mounts as the vains.



And hello ladies and gentleman! A mesh grille for my Bentley!



Check it out! I think it looks great.



Now back to mounting the grille on the car.



Lining up everything ended up being a bit of a challenge. My bonnet was not put on straight last time it was taken off, so that was fixed.

Then the centre post had to be perfect. But what was slightly skewed was the flying B blank after the badge.

After quite a bit of chiropractic adjustments to the bonnet, the grill, the flying B blank, the centre post and the mesh it finally was right.



Now check it out, just great. I am a fan.



And I did it myself. With some great help, but I had a go. And I think I made my car better.

And it's totally reversible for the people who think it's wrong. I don't think it looks like a Bentley Eight. I think it looks more like a late 90s Bentley Turbo R along with my 18" wheels.

Thanks again to the Bentley boys who helped me out today.

I owe you beer.

Here is a comparison article I wrote in 2007 and a good side by side shot here.

7 Comments:

At 10:43 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Bonjour

quel dommage. Malgrè toute la sympatie que j'ai pour votre site, je dois bien dire que je n'approuve pas cette modification.
Pour moi, chaque BENTLEY ou ROLLS-ROYCE est pratiquement une pièce unique. Je suis en train de terminer un livre qui permet de retracer l'évolution de tous les modèles depuis la Silver Shadow et les reconnaître n'est pas toujours facile. Le retour de la calandre maillée est important pour cette génération. D'autre part, la calandre est l'une des pièces maîtresse du savoir-faire de Crewe.
Cordialement
Christian

 
At 2:02 am, Anonymous Benoit said...

Altough I prefer the original vanes, you did a great job.
It just shows what you can do with a little creativity and dedication.

 
At 4:45 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I always thought the vanes on Turbo R's out of place and far prefer the optional mesh grill offered by the Factory during production and as a retrofit. Never liked the laser cut alloy ones they flogged later on, to chinzy, but that balance between wire thickness and mesh size on yours is the best I've seen. Stainless I assume. Looks really authentic but better. Hell if we stuck with radio cassettes ancient design tyres and ugly old alloy wheels these cars would be wasted.

Give me a try ! Stefan.

 
At 7:37 am, Blogger Irvine said...

I think it looks great! As long as you keep the original parts, there's nothing anyone can complain about. Some of these modifications in which an entire interior or outer panels are thrown away and replaced by non Crewe/Goodwood parts are questionable...
This I personally like. It can always be changed back.
Good job!

 
At 6:05 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Very Nice! What a great article. What did you use for Mesh & the center Bar? Where did you purchase the materials? I am in Canada & have a Royal Blue 1992 Turbo RL with the same 5Spoke Continental "T" wheels as on yours.My wife has a 1992 Merc 500SL in Ice Blue which is about the same Colour as your car.Your car is sort of a cross between both of ours & very handsome & different.Cheers Terry Murphy RROC Life member

 
At 9:03 pm, Blogger Unknown said...

looks great,well done

 
At 9:08 pm, Blogger Unknown said...

i didn't realise Bentley grills cost that much so having a go making your own is great, looks much better ,they should have been standard anyway .

 

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