Kidney Grilles

[N44RP]

Need to purchase a set in decent condition.

Located in central Florida, will cover shipping expenses

[GRNSHRK]

You could try this guy in Slovenia, but you might have to sell a kidney in order to pay for them

viewtopic.php?t=33250

Unless yours are missing, you might want to consider restoring your own

[N44RP]

Thank you for the link, I saw him and his post. I was hoping to find a more reasonable pair before going that path

[GRNSHRK]

They are NLA from BMW, very hard to come by, and expensive when you do find them

I actually have my original frames without the black slats, hoping to try and repolish them at some point

Good luck, hope you score a pair

[Ralph in Socal]

I have this set available. $200 shipped conus, more for international shopping. One pic shows where PO damaged the outer anodized coating.

Ralph

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[Ralph in Socal]

I actually have my original frames without the black slats, hoping to try and repolish them at some point

I suggest you try getting then powder coated like your strut brace mounts.

Ralph

[N44RP]

I actually have my original frames without the black slats, hoping to try and repolish them at some point

I suggest you try getting then powder coated like your strut brace mounts.

Ralph

I’ll take them Ralph
Sending you a message

[Ralph in Socal]

I've replied to your PM Ryan

Ralph

[jsspagg]

They are NLA from BMW, very hard to come by, and expensive when you do find them

I actually have my original frames without the black slats, hoping to try and repolish them at some point

Good luck, hope you score a pair

I am working on this now. The kidneys that came off my zypressgrun car were "blacked out" by the PO sometime in the 90's. The set is straight and in better condition than the set on my restoration project so I swapped them out and in process of refinishing them.

The plastic grill part seems like it would normally be pretty straight forward to polish up with some 400 & 1000 wet paper and finish with some compound on a felt wheel run off a Dremel tool. I first had to sand with 220 paper to remove the paint then the above steps. Took some time but end result is good.

Here is some of my work in progress. You have any solutions for the center top rivet? Looking for ideas.

[GRNSHRK]

Hah, made me look

Well, interesting, as the ones on my 6er are a mixed bag, one has the rivet and the other one doesn't

It appears that the rivets are only there as a sort of spacer and support for the screw that holds them in place

I never really thought about it until I took another look

Have you thought about trying pop rivets

I bought a pop rivet gun at Harbor Freight for another project, and I don't think kit was even $10

[jsspagg]

Bob- Yes, I spent a few hours cutting and drilling on rivets to get a close match to the look of OEM. The problem is the rivet gun I have, also a Harbor Freight one, is not narrow enough at the business end to get between the slats. My (untested) solution is to use a machine screw that corresponds to the ID of the rivet and a reversed cap nut that is drilled out. On assembly, the reversed cap nut will expand/flare the rivet and secure in place. Will probably need to cross cut the rivet where it needs to be flared to use a tool to complete the seating process. Basically, A royal PITA time consuming effort.