The installation of the mesh grill was pretty easy. A little creativity is required when doing it, and so are some cut up hands. Sharp edges everywhere, so be careful. This applies to 1996 Contours, since that's what I have. Your mileage with other years may vary, but it should be about the same.
You'll want to go to Home Depot, Lowes, or any local hardware store. Look around for some gutter screen that is used to keep leaves and stuff out of the gutters on your house. The stuff I bought is called "Premium Hinged Gutter Guards" by Gutter World. I bought a 36" section that is about 6" wide. I got the stuff that is aluminum in color, but they also had some that looked almost graphite color, and I believe there was also black.
Also pick-up some tin snips and nylon wire ties (I had a hundred so was very liberal in messing them up, you'll probably want at least 20) while you are at it. The guy at Home Depot reccomended that I just use the snips once and return to save a few bucks. Think I'll hang on to them, never know when a set of tin snips will come in handy!
Take the original grill off of your car. Wash it off so your hands will stay somewhat clean. Take the Ford emblem off and put it in your garage or something.
Place the piece of gutter guard over the grill, and cut it down to the approximate width. The key here is to make it a little bit wider than necessary, as you'll trim to fit perfectly later. I secured the top of the mesh to the original grill with the screws from the car. You can use a nylon wire tie here as well.
Bend the mesh around the shape of the original grill. Put about 3 wire ties around the edges of the mesh to hold it onto the original grill. Cut around the shape of the original grill a little bit tighter than you did before. I left it so that the mesh was about flush with the round trim around the original grill.
Remove the 3 ties with the snips or whatever you want to use. Start on either side and pull the mesh as tight as you can against the original grill. Place wireties about every three or four inches, going through the mesh and bottom hole of the original grill. Make sure you are pulling the mesh as tight as you can, and very flush. Makes it look much better.
After putting the ties all the way around, trim with the snips one last time. Take it back out to the car, and put it on. Close the hood, and take a look. You're done!
It took me two times to get it looking decent, so you'll probably want to strips of the gutter guard. At a buck a strip, it's pretty cheap to mess up.
Here is a pic of what mine looks like. Still not perfect, but it looks pretty good.
