The Challenge Stradale has slightly different grills in the bumper to the standard 360. In the picture below you can see that the CS grills have a pattern that matches the Challenge rear grill. The price of £270 a set is a lot to pay for some pressed metal so here I am going to show you how to make your own for a fraction of the cost.
Here is a picture of a CS grill (left) next to a standard grill.
The CS grills are made from a perforated sheet – 3mm holes with a 5mm pitch (32% open area). Here I am using an offcut of aluminium (to save weight) which cost me £12.
Mark up the perforated sheet by using your old grills as a template:
Cut out the shapes using a dremel (or similar):
Making the grill surrounds seemed like a lot of hard work so I used some old ones. Chop out the mesh:
Then grind and polish the spot welds off the rear:
Here’s the old surround and the new mesh:
The old surrounds are made from steel – if you use aluminium like I did then you cannot weld them together. I joined them by using a two part epoxy resin specifically for joining metal:
Remove all the old paint:
Apply a coat of etch primer:
Finnlly, paint with a satin black. The centre grill doesn’t need to have a surround transposed onto it as it is not visible once fitted.
Aldous Voice 