Since I purchased my car in the beginning of July, I've been riding around with my license plate in my trunk. I never had a front frame installed (car was originally from Michigan) and I had to wait for the dealer to get one in before I would even worry about mounting it. Since I live in the Nazi state that is Illinois, I figured I'd better get myself covered somehow. I didn't like the idea of riveting in the stock location, wasn't too wild about mounting it to the bottom of the bumper (ground clearance issues), and since our US version doesn't have a tow hook location, I couldn't install it there either. Had to come up with something new.
I work for a company that designs large format interactive kiosks and we had actually looked at lots of different ways of attaching the doors. One of these concepts was to treat the door like a giant speaker grille and use those little press fit male/female plastic plugs to get the door to snap into place. We never got around to testing it, but I've always wanted to give them a try somehow and after checking out how the factory license plate frame might mount, figured it would be worth a try.
I picked up a package of the larger of the two sizes off of eBay. They cost about $12.50 for a dozen male/female pairs shipped. Here's a picture of what they look like, and if you search for a description, they were called "BEST Quality SPEAKER GRILL CLOTH Large Peg Kit Grille Fabric Peg Kit # GC-PEG"
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This past week I finally got my license plate frame and got a chance tonight to give it a try.
I was originally expecting there to be 4 rivet locations in the plastic frame, but as you'll see in the pictures, there two locations and two clips on the top that tie into the plastic cross member within the grille. I didn't think it was going to be as secure as I originally planned, but one test fit that engaged just the top clips told me that it was probably going to be even better than expected.
Here's the male/female pair
The male plastic pieces need a hole drilled to 7/16". Since I didn't have that size at home, I used the step drill and was able to "drill" through the plastic by hand.
After drilling, they pop right in.
Here's both of them installed. License plate frame is now done (for now)
The next part was the female side. Before I purchased the parts I had to make sure the barrel of the female side would fit within the honeycomb shape of the grill. I can't remember the measurements off the top of my head, but they were going to fit fine. The outer lip needed a little trim to fit tho, but the side cutters made very quick work of that.
Next comes the drilling part. Of course, here's where I say measure twice, cut once. The holes were going to be pretty noticeable so they had to be not only in the right spot, but perfectly centered in the honeycomb pattern. The hole for this side needed to be 9/16" and the only way I could hit that was with my step drill bit. I ended up finding a 1/2" drill instead and then trimmed the rest of the necessary opening out by hand.
After drilling a pilot hole, I noticed there is a bumper reinforcement DIRECTLY behind that cross piece of plastic. In order to still make all of this work, I actually drilled out the back of the female side and trimmed it down a little bit so it could fit in the hole without any pressure from the bumper internals. After trimming off the back, the little cups fit right in!
Here they are installed. Hardly noticeable outside of about 2 feet.
The next part is to install the plate with the included screws that came with the bracket. (As a side note, I ended up taking off the plate to glue the male plugs to the license plate frame. I used some PVC cement I had in the garage, just to make sure things stay tight. I may end up adding some to the female side too, but will give this a go to see if it's needed.)
The last part is to line up the plugs with the female side and snap it in - done and done!
A couple videos too, first one is with a voice over, second one just a walk through.
I work for a company that designs large format interactive kiosks and we had actually looked at lots of different ways of attaching the doors. One of these concepts was to treat the door like a giant speaker grille and use those little press fit male/female plastic plugs to get the door to snap into place. We never got around to testing it, but I've always wanted to give them a try somehow and after checking out how the factory license plate frame might mount, figured it would be worth a try.
I picked up a package of the larger of the two sizes off of eBay. They cost about $12.50 for a dozen male/female pairs shipped. Here's a picture of what they look like, and if you search for a description, they were called "BEST Quality SPEAKER GRILL CLOTH Large Peg Kit Grille Fabric Peg Kit # GC-PEG"
This past week I finally got my license plate frame and got a chance tonight to give it a try.
I was originally expecting there to be 4 rivet locations in the plastic frame, but as you'll see in the pictures, there two locations and two clips on the top that tie into the plastic cross member within the grille. I didn't think it was going to be as secure as I originally planned, but one test fit that engaged just the top clips told me that it was probably going to be even better than expected.
Here's the male/female pair
The male plastic pieces need a hole drilled to 7/16". Since I didn't have that size at home, I used the step drill and was able to "drill" through the plastic by hand.
After drilling, they pop right in.
Here's both of them installed. License plate frame is now done (for now)
The next part was the female side. Before I purchased the parts I had to make sure the barrel of the female side would fit within the honeycomb shape of the grill. I can't remember the measurements off the top of my head, but they were going to fit fine. The outer lip needed a little trim to fit tho, but the side cutters made very quick work of that.
Next comes the drilling part. Of course, here's where I say measure twice, cut once. The holes were going to be pretty noticeable so they had to be not only in the right spot, but perfectly centered in the honeycomb pattern. The hole for this side needed to be 9/16" and the only way I could hit that was with my step drill bit. I ended up finding a 1/2" drill instead and then trimmed the rest of the necessary opening out by hand.
After drilling a pilot hole, I noticed there is a bumper reinforcement DIRECTLY behind that cross piece of plastic. In order to still make all of this work, I actually drilled out the back of the female side and trimmed it down a little bit so it could fit in the hole without any pressure from the bumper internals. After trimming off the back, the little cups fit right in!
Here they are installed. Hardly noticeable outside of about 2 feet.
The next part is to install the plate with the included screws that came with the bracket. (As a side note, I ended up taking off the plate to glue the male plugs to the license plate frame. I used some PVC cement I had in the garage, just to make sure things stay tight. I may end up adding some to the female side too, but will give this a go to see if it's needed.)
The last part is to line up the plugs with the female side and snap it in - done and done!
A couple videos too, first one is with a voice over, second one just a walk through.
