Front Plate Mount Solution

[Paul MD]

Folks

I swore I wasn't gonna mount my front plate either, then I got chased by 3 people, photographed by another 4, stopped in the street by God knows how many and 'observed closely' by more policemen than I've seen in Maryland in my life... and all of this in one week.

This car attracts so much attention I found my bowels loosening everytime I saw a police car!

So I mounted my front plate in hopes that I can drive by grinning like the Cheshire Cat. Flame away if you like but I'm 'mostly legal' and frankly don't think the result is too bad. I got used to driving a UK car with UK front plate so this is actually a smaller, neater solution almost Germanic in its aesthetic. Maybe this will help some folks.

Yeah, yeah, yeah I know, you've been driving since before the war with no plates at all and your ass hanging out the window and have never been stopped... well alas I was born genetically unlucky so I'm pretty much risk-averse.

INSPIRED BY MERLIN... THANKS MERLIN... I bring you:

"Borderline Illegal Front Plate"

Pictures pretty much tell the story...

Bend plate to suit between two bits of wood so it looks kinda straight. Yep I know, that's the illegal part but I figure that most plate surrounds blank the bottom portion of the plate below the number and frequently half (or more) of the state lettering...

I mounted it from underneath (for obvious reasons) with two galvanised sheet metal screws into pilot holes drilled into in the clam plate bump thingy (I used a dremel with flexible drive). I'll probably change them out for stainless at some point.

The innovation is I spaced the plate off the clam with two rubber grommets, this giving some flexibilty and load spreading/absorbtion. Now at present the grommets I used are a little too small (height-wise) and the plate sits pretty snug to the clam. I'll be looking to change these out for slightly chunkier versions so that the PLATE IS FRACTIONALLY LOWER THAT THE 'CHIN- BUMPS' to the left and right... PURPOSE? If I drop the plate by about 3/8" then IT will hit (scrape) the ground BEFORE the main clam does - thus I build in an early warning of imminent clam-catastrophe.

So I'll post the pics now and you can imagine the taller grommets...

At the moment I've just put foam tape on the back of the plate to protect the paint - like Merlin I'll replace this with those felt furniture pads next time I 'have it off'.

Think that's about it, maybe it'll suit some folks.