Most Expensive License Plate Holder Ever

Wow! Has it really been a month since I last posted?  Well, we’ve been relaxing in the Smoky Mountains and on the beach in Gulf Shores, AL trying to avoid tornadoes.   None touched down near us but we had warnings and watches and some very gusty winds a few times.  Living in an RV in tornado country is a little like being a tuna in a shark tank (you know, trailers are tornado food and all that).  It can get a little stressful at times.

However, while in Gulf Shores we decided we needed a new license plate holder for the Jeep.   We love the new Jeep Wrangler JL.  The biggest problem with th JL, though, is that Jeep forgot to make a mounting location for the front license plate!  Ugh.  I know, a lot of folks just stick it in the windshield or never put it on at all, but many states require a front license plate and I have been stopped in the past for not having one (many years ago).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My first plate mount attempt was to simply zip tie the plate to the grille.  Not only did it not look “cool”, after a while all the jiggling scuffed up my very cool grille. Bummer.

 

See? Just doesn’t look cool!

I later zip tied it to the center of the bumper plate… No bueno either.

 

So, the hunt was on for an aftermarket license plate holder that would fit on the Jeep’s steel bumper.  The steel bumper was designed to fit a winch, but not a license plate(?).  No one seems to be making a good license plate holder that mounts to the bumper and looks good unless you mount it to the fairlead of your winch… hmmm….

So I had to:

• Buy a fairlead (the thing that protects the winch cable as it slides through the bumper)
• Then, if your getting a winch fairlead might as well get a winch
• Of course, in order to mount the winch you need a special mount plate for the winch that holds it to the frame of the Jeep
• Once you have all that installed you can mount your nice new license plate holder to the fairlead!  🙂

So I bought everything I needed online, had it shipped to the RV park and watched Youtube installation videos to learn what not to do while installing… that was a good move.  Also, while waiting for the equipment to arrive I studied the movement of the maintenance workers and “workampers” that drove around in their little electric golf carts checking on everything in the park.  I learned who they were, what time they started in the morning, how often they made their rounds, how long it took them to travel at 5mph from the office to site 21 where we were parked.  I logged it all in Google Sheets, sorted by time and correlated it with sunset each day (you’ll see why).

First thing I had to do was drop the bumper of the Jeep.  This was risky since the RV park we were staying in has those rigid rules about no-working-on-your-vehicle in their fancy, shmancy park (it was a nice park).  So, I had to work stealthily.  Using the info from my spreadsheet, I planned everything out carefully and worked in short, 30 minute increments.  Working only at dusk when it was harder to be seen and picking up all my tools and parts immediately.  Can I do it?  Will we get kicked out of the park?  Here goes…

First, drop the bumper.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then, as quickly as possible, slap on the winch mount plate, then the winch, finally throw the bumper back on…

 

Ruh Roh!  Here come the security volunteers on their little electric golf cart… They’re early!  This wasn’t in the spreadsheet!  OK… play it cool, don’t make any noise…  good, they drove by and didn’t even see me… sweet…   Wait, oh man!!  I dropped the bumper… did they hear it?  Yes, they looked back, right at me. They’re turning their cart around.  Here they come…  Don’t get nervous, just smile, wave and try to look bigger than the big guy in the cart ( like the frilled dragon lizard that puffs out his neck to scare off predators)… then duck back behind the Jeep again…  whew, it worked… they just drove right by… probably heading to the office to report me!  According to the spreadsheet it should take them 8.3 minutes to get to the office…  OK, just get that bumper back on…  aaannnnddd… DONE!  Quick, clean up the tools, run back in the RV and take a nap.  Pretend like you haven’t been outside at all.

It all worked.  Now I have a cool, 10,000lb winch and most importantly a license plate holder that flips up to reveal the winch cable and fairlead.  Nice!