I was in the situation. If I removed the entire plate bracket along with the horizontal bar, I would be left with two holes in the lower lip. What I decided to do was to break the spot welds on the two small vertical brackets that go over the horizontal bracket. This allowed me to remove the large plate bracket, keep the horizontal bar, and avoid the two holes in the lower lip. This means the horizontal bar remains on the car, which some don’t like, but it allows me to reinstall the plate at a future date. I drilled a hole in the two small vertical brackets and the large plate and then installed lock washers and wing-nuts. If I want to reinstall the large plate bracket, I simply slide the two small brackets over the horizontal bar, tighten the wing-nuts and reattach the rod. Tada!
CA requires front & rear, but I haven’t had a front plate on in 40 years of driving here. I was only stopped once when I had my Lotus in the mid-80’s, but I was prepared. In the front well I kept my front plate that was bent and attached to a broken bracket, so I showed it to the cop and told him someone had backed into me and busted it and I’ve been trying to get one shipped from England since they’re impossible to find. He let me off without even a fix-it ticket. Since then I don’t even bother with the front plate, figuring getting stopped once every 40+ years isn’t too much of inconvenience.
How can that be bad? I dropped Facebook about a year ago, while I occasionally miss it I doubt I’ll ever go back.
Cheers,
Lynn
PS: what is bad is that I spend almost as much time on BAT as I do JL…That’s BAD!
Great news, I finally succeeded in removing the front license plate bracket! Thanks for all your suggestions. It seems the plate that makes up the floor of the ‘mouth’ on the car has a 90 degree bend downward at the rear and is attached with 3 or 4 bolts accessed from under the car. Once I removed them, the plate came off easily, exposing the hardware holding the front bracket. Now I’m looking for something to cover up the two holes that are now exposed on the ‘lips’ of the ‘mouth’. Any suggestions?
Not much you can do unless you’re planning to paint the car. You can get rubber plugs from a NAPA store and either paint them to match or not. I just have holes.
Here in California we’re required to have both plates on the car, but in 30 years of driving classics without a front plate I’ve never been stopped. However I do keep the front plate in the car with me just in case… either behind or under the seat
John – given the initial reason you were pulled over , you started in a no-win situation.
Sounds like this cop was a first class prig.
He was looking for violations in a most-unhelpful manner.
