So, I push down a lot of brush (mostly BIG Privets, which I despise) w/ my FEL and a few times it has gotten the best of me and damaged my cheap plastic grills. The 1st thing I did was build a steel grill guard and hung it from the Kubota 3 bar grill guard. I'll post on that at another time. My steel guard protected me enough until....
Well, I decided to buy 2 parts of the factory plastic grill ($200) since I did not want to puncture my radiator or something. Well, a few weeks later, nearly stuck on a hillside pushing over privets, and tore up my new $140 lower grill.
I figured out a way to make it way stronger and cover the new holes I'd made. I hope to update sometime later if it is strong enough.
What I bought was from a piece of steel gutter guard from Lowes for $3.xx. 1 piece was exactly enough. I laid it on the edge of the workbench and hammered the 2 bends out of it easily - that took maybe 3 minutes. Taking the bends out added the nice advantage of curving it a bit.
I then got out some 1/2" long, 1/2 big head aluminum rivets, normally used to hold aluminum or steel sheetmetal and the backer washers that are sold with them and put the 1st rivets in the middle and worked my way outward (3/16" drill bit). I put the holes in the indented line as it seemed a stronger location. As I got near the ends, I marked the shape w/ a soap stone and easily cut it with my tin snips.
This stuff feels very strong and unlikely to break or tear near as easily as the stinking plastic grill. Hope this helps someone. The photos were taken before completion, so to finish I added about 6 more rivets.
Well, I decided to buy 2 parts of the factory plastic grill ($200) since I did not want to puncture my radiator or something. Well, a few weeks later, nearly stuck on a hillside pushing over privets, and tore up my new $140 lower grill.
I figured out a way to make it way stronger and cover the new holes I'd made. I hope to update sometime later if it is strong enough.
What I bought was from a piece of steel gutter guard from Lowes for $3.xx. 1 piece was exactly enough. I laid it on the edge of the workbench and hammered the 2 bends out of it easily - that took maybe 3 minutes. Taking the bends out added the nice advantage of curving it a bit.
I then got out some 1/2" long, 1/2 big head aluminum rivets, normally used to hold aluminum or steel sheetmetal and the backer washers that are sold with them and put the 1st rivets in the middle and worked my way outward (3/16" drill bit). I put the holes in the indented line as it seemed a stronger location. As I got near the ends, I marked the shape w/ a soap stone and easily cut it with my tin snips.
This stuff feels very strong and unlikely to break or tear near as easily as the stinking plastic grill. Hope this helps someone. The photos were taken before completion, so to finish I added about 6 more rivets.
