I made this simple DIY because I know that a true Autopian can appreciate the desire to keep everything looking fresh and clean. In other words I wanted to share this with people who are called crazy all the time because of their OCD habits just like me.
So I wanted to find a way to protect my license plate and to keep it from getting dirty. I priced some sealed license plate covers online and if I recall they ran about $30 plus shipping. I figured that it couldn’t be that hard to do so I made my own for about $10.
The frame was put together and installed two years ago and I didn’t want to make a DIY unless I knew it worked. For my registration renewal I had to remove the plate from car to put on the new sticker. Low and behold the plate was clean as could be. No dirt on it at all, it looked just as new as it did when I installed it.
So now I hope you are all excited and ready to do this yourself. If so this is what you need:
- A license plate frame/cover. I picked up this one made by Bell. I bought it from Wal-Mart for about $5. I think they even had ones with tinted covers but I chose the clear one. (
the sockets didn't come with it)
- Some weather stripping. I picked this up from Home Depot. I liked it because the D shape let it contour nicely to the edge of the plate.
- Some other foam weather stripping to go around the holes of the cover.
- And if your vehicle only uses two holes to mount the plate (like mine) you may want to find two small round headed bolts and two nuts. I used these at the bottom to keep the frame together.
Next you have to assemble it:
Cut the weather stripping to fit the top/bottom and left/right side of the clear frame cover. The stripping that I used is 2 D shaped pieces together. It can be separated down the center which I did.
Don't think I risked scratching the cover in the pic above ^ it was resting on top of the frame and not touching the concrete. Would a guy go through this much trouble and not care about scratching the cover?
This is how it looks from the viewing side
Oh oh, you can see the weather strips. Well hello, yes, since the cover is clear.
Don’t worry it will be covered by the black frame.
Next I used the other foam weather stripping that I had lying around. I cut it in small rectangles and stuck it around the holes in the cover. I used 3 rectangular pieces since it doesn’t take to a round shape. If you look closely at the pic above (2 above) you can see a piece that stayed stuck to the cover on the bottom left hand side. The rest of the pieces stuck to the plate so I don’t have pictures of it.
Next I used the round headed bolts and nuts to keep the bottom of the frame together.
Here is what it looks like from the back side:
Finally, you mount the license plate to the vehicle.
The finished product:
Notice that the bolt heads are black. I painted them flat black so they didn’t stand out as much. Just get some flat black spray paint, shake it, spray a little bit in a small cup, and apply it to the heads with a small paint brush (if you don’t have a small brush a Q-tip would work for this).
And there you have it!
A very simple yet effective way to protect your license plate while saving a few bucks and having the satisfaction that you made something yourself.
Re: DIY: a cheap weatherproof license plate frame 
then throw in holes for a license plate. 
I'm in Covington.
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