Stull Diamond Wire Grille
By Chris Henry

If you hang out very much in the Grand Cherokee discussion forums you have seen the gutter mesh upgrade a bunch of times. People have gone out to Home Depot and grabbed some aluminum gutter mesh for $7,cut it into pieces and mounted it behind their grill. People have done it to ZJ's, WJ's, and a ton of other SUV's, trucks, and cars on the road. What is it's function? Well, there isn't a ton of function to it. I suppose it might help to save your radiator from hard debris flying off the road but the main purpose of this upgrade is looks.

I got the Stull Diamond Wire Grille via UPS and hoped I wouldn't just find a hunk of gutter mesh marked up 1000% percent and repackaged. Well, I was very pleased to find a sturdy one piece stainless steel wire grille. It is much thinker and stronger than the gutter mesh and it looks ten times better. I quickly figured out why they called it Diamond Wire. It has a ripple all over the mesh and the whole grille is very smoothly polished stainless steel. The dull, flat aluminum of gutter mesh looks like trash next to it.

The grille comes with brief instructions with no illustrations. It would be nice if they included pictures but it really is simply once you do it. The installation varies depending on whether you have a painted grille or a chrome grille. Basically, you unscrew the four screws which hold the top of the front grill in place and the three screws which are located near of the bottom of the grille openings. Now you remove the black plastic grille insert. This is the hardest part, the retainers that hold this is place are very annoying. The top two are ok, but the bottom two are almost impossible to get off without just snapping the plastic. It is no big deal if you snap the plastic, but it would be nice not to break anything but oh well, you are replace the plastic grille anyway, get over it. I small flathead screwdriver wedged under the metal retainer clips is the best way to detach the black plastic grille but it takes a little fiddling. Note, this annoyance has nothing to do with the Stull Wire Mesh kit, but rather the quick and easy assembly method Daimler-Chrysler used.

Once the black plastic factory grille is removed, you just pop the mesh right in and put all the screws back in.

Click on the pic above for a high res version.

The Stull Diamond Wire Grille really makes the WJ stand out. It it very shiny but very thin so it doesn't hamper airflow to the radiator much (if at all). There aren't any rough edges and it is one piece which makes it a bit easier to install than seven mesh pieces. It is available for under $130 at a variety of online retailers and local speed shops.

http://www.stullindustries.com