Mounting front license plate

[Sam-Son]

whatever you do please do not drill an M-Technic bumper...or any E34 bumper for that matter
I live in NY and deal with the same BS front plate laws...most of the time I just run a filler plate and could care less about the front plate(I despise front plates in all forms)

that said when I do slap the front plate on i go this route...
http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum....php?t=1117097

[bbig119]

The parts to mount the plate 'properly' are in the mail and hopefully will do the trick. However, what you've done in that post looks like an excellent alternative should I continue to have problems mounting the plate.

[bubba966]

whatever you do please do not drill an M-Technic bumper...or any E34 bumper for that matter

You don't actually drill the bumper, you drill the center trim strip. You could easily have a second trim strip that had no holes in it should you want the front plate off for whatever reason and it'd be perfect.

[bubba966]

that said when I do slap the front plate on i go this route...
http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum....php?t=1117097

See, you've already got the holes in the bumper for the plate mounting bracket. That style bumper has the center trim strip as a separate piece from the filler plate. M-Tech & M5 bumpers have the center trim strip & filler plate as a one piece item. So to have the center trim strip in and have a plate on the front you need to drill two pass-through holes in the filler plate area of the trim strip so the mounting screws for the bracket can get to the inserts you've installed in the aluminum part of the bumper.

[bubba966]

The parts to mount the plate 'properly' are in the mail and hopefully will do the trick.

So, did you order the trim strip, or are you going to try it with your current trim strip first?

[bbig119]

So, did you order the trim strip, or are you going to try it with your current trim strip first?

I ordered the new trim-- it will look better in the end. The current trim piece is for a euro plate so even if it would mount properly the US plate would look strange in that space. I should have dealt with this a while ago so having to mount the plate is just forcing my hand some and as it sounds like this is rather simple and straightforward I'd rather try to do it right instead of coming up with an acceptable solution(though the Velcro looks like a fine one at that)

[bbig119]

I installed the front plate today and it turned out to be a bit more of a pain in the ass than I thought.

I first tried to install without the new trim piece, but the screw holes for the license plate sat flush against the bumper and I didn't want to damage the bumper, but the mounting bracket did fit nicely.

I took the new trim piece and drilled out the holes to accommodate the mounting plate. The trim has these holes scored on the back to begin with. Even with the extra clearance that the trim provided it appeared that the screws may end up pushing up against the bumper. At this point I tried to think of alternatives.

The bottom two screws aren't in the way so there was no problem using screws there. I ended up putting velcrow on the plate and mounting bracket and then using zip ties on the two top holes of the license plate. The zipties seem a bit ghetto but I don't think they look bad and they will do a fine job of holding the plate. Even if they break or come loose I have the plate screwed in from the bottom so it won't fall off and the velcrow for whatever that's worth.

Thanks for you help and hopefully this holds up.