Anybody mounting their plates on anything other than their rear bumper?

Ive heard about recessed mounting kits for tailgate mounts. Anybody have experience with these?

The reason I ask is that I am building a rear bumper, and was wondering about my mounting options. I might want to do something awesome and out of the ordinary.

Thanks.

 

i had a 1991 that i made a custom tailgate for and i put the plate on there. then i also have a 1995 which has the plate in the back window. its a lexan window with a box resesed at an angle. (the police dident like that to much, but its not illegal as long as it has a light) some place like stylin trucks will have both the boxes and windows for whatever you decide to do with it.

 

How expensive is the plate in the tailgate mod?

 

if you have a welder some steel and body filler and know how to use them then its cheap. to have it done it will probably cost a little bit but I have no idea what a shop would charge for that. it is something very common in the low rider/mini truckin world check around there and you may be able to find some prices.

 

I can estimate to french in a plate box. $500.00 this includes french, shaved tailgate handle, paint and everything. If you french your plate you will also want to shave your tailgate handle. It cleans things up nicely.

 

hmmm....I dont know if I would be all into the shaved handle.

 

Why not? it would look so much better!

 

Yeap it will look alot better and u can still use the tailgate (but my handle isnt shaved its got a grant tailgate skin)

 

Your tailgate still functions great, your handle will be flipped to the inside. So the mod is a win.

 

they sell those license plate boxes on mini truckin' sites. however like mentioned, you have to cut into the bed and do some custom work.

 

Have you decided on what you are going to do with it yet? I am going to be finishing my bumper up this summer. i like the look of it recessed in the tailgate but i dont want to cut it weld it and then have to repaint it.

 

!!!!!!!

You just gave me an idea. Instead of repainting the tailgate, just cut the hole, weld in the mount, then after cleaning up the weld and stuff, bedline about an inch around the license plate on the tailgate.

This should eliminate the need to repaint the entire tailgate. I dont know how it would look though.

 

I was thinking about something like this to keep from doing all the work, you can just bolt it to the tailgate and mount the plate. And also i dont think i would like a square of black bed liner around it with the rest of the paint normal.

 

well, does you tailgate have the bottom lip thing?

i was thinking about bedlining that anyways (with the rest of the bottom half of my truck) and it would look a little better with the black square of bedliner resting on that black strip at the bottom of the tailgate.

 

Yeah it does and i am planning on bedlining the below the bottom body line this summer but i think the plate is bigger than that.

 

Im talking about having the mount right above that lip. Not on or in it.

 

that would look better than just being out in the middle surounded by blue paint atleast it would be tied in with the rest of the black.

 

True. This mod has just been added to the to-do list lol.

I was thinking that there would be a place on my bumper to mount after I finished it, but looking at it, I dont know if there will be a good place for the plate along with the lights.

 

Hey Zach, got any pics of your in-progress bumper?

 

haha i have pics of my old design that never even got half way finished the bad thing is it is still on my truck. I came up with the idea two years ago over the summer but ran out of time to finish it before college started back up and i havnt done anything to it since. and since then i have scraped the idea i had to begin with and came up with a new one that will be easier to build i think. so i have pics but nothing worth showing. if you see recent pictures of my truck you can see what is on there now and its hideous. good thing it sits in the drive way most of the time.

 

Yeah, Im in the process of a rear bumper.

I started off thinking that it wouldnt be that difficult, but it has turned out to be a lot more work than I thought. Its not that bad though, just frustrating that I only have like 1 hr a day to work on it.

 

One of my former students had a motorized tray that his plate was mounted to and it could be raised up out of the tailgate when the vehicle is on the road. Pretty slick idea. Sorry I can't find any pictures of it at the moment.