I [heart] Davids It helps me to say these things aloud, I think.

April 1, 2007

Adventures in License Plates

Filed under: While Driving — JeniQ @ 6:26 pm

Dave and I got new license plates this year, rather than just renewing our old plates.

I looked through the available choices and just had to have this one:

I couldn’t believe this option was available. I’ve never seen it on the road before and I love how unique it is. Sweet!! (pun intended)

Dave got a Blue Ridge Parkway license plate. It costs an extra $30 but $20 of that goes to the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation so, cool.

Replacing license plates should be a 10 minute job. Not today. Mine was quick and easy but Dave’s was not and required a trip to Lowe’s.

His BMW has a bracket that affixes to the car, and the license attaches to the bracket. The license attaches to the bracket by way of four screws pockets built into the bracket. They contain threads appropriate for the screws and have a cushion on the back that prevents the paint from being damaged by the screw tips.

The screw pockets had aged and did not stay in the bracket when I tried to remove the screws – I took out three of the screw pockets along with the screws. You can see this in the left side of the picture below. The right side shows the only screw that came out properly.

So I had to improvise. I forced the fourth screw pocket out of the bracket and then I glued new screw pockets in place. I glued bumpers on the back sides to replace the worn-out cushions. I also had to buy new screws to fit the new, smaller screw pockets.

It worked really well! Here’s the finished product.

A close-up of the new screw pockets in place (on either side):

A close-up of the bumper:

3 Comments »

  1. Ok.. Fill me in on your thoughts for this plate…

    Comment by — April 3, 2007 @ 12:21 am

  2. Dig the watermelon! I didn’t know it was an option either.

    Comment by — April 3, 2007 @ 11:32 am

  3. Does the watermelon plate send lots of money to a watermelon-saving organization?

    Comment by — April 4, 2007 @ 1:00 pm

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Leave a comment

Powered by WordPress