Modern Vespa

I keep my Liberty spotless. It not only keeps it lookin' good for my scooters fan club but helps me look for leaks or anything else that seems wrong. So how this escaped me is strange. My plate is mounted with 3 tiny screws to a plastic fender. Its the factory mount plate as well. So I'm riding home and hear a strange noise as I'm turning a corner, no small feat since I have a full face on. My license plate bracket fell off! All 3 little nuts are obviously gone! The screws are still behind my plate so I'm heading to the hardware store to bulletproof this little mishap. I say little because I didn't loose my license plate. Our DMV is only open Tues., Thurs and Sat. The online is a huge hassle. So check you plate mount for its tiny little nuts!

I check them for snugness about twice a month. I find them loose two or three times a year.

Our National Road Traffic Act requires license plates to be mounted using a single manufacturer accredited product.
The ABS plastic mounting is attached to the vehicle through a number of slotted holes,
with the plate itself rivetted in each corner to the mount to deter removal.



Problems I have found are that the mount is not rigid enough and it resonates,
causing failure of the mounting by pulling off the mounting bolts.

Before the mount is fitted, I use soft plastic faucet washers to mute resonance in the mount
together with fender washers at each end of the bolts to spread the load.
I then also use faucet washers to mute vibration in the plate itself.

This combo makes for a quiet, vibration-free ride for years...

I usually put Loctite nuts behind the plate mounts, and behind the plate itself. I also get the specialty anti-theft plate bolts (and add Loctite if they don't come with it already). Major PITA whenever I need to do anything with it, but more than worth the piece of mind. That stuff gets checked over every few weeks or once a month-ish.

Rivets to fix the license plate and bolts with self-locking nuts for the license plate holder.

+1. I pop rivet the plate to the bracket, and use theft-resistant bolts with nyloc nuts to hold the bracket to the fender.

I put the plate mount back on with thread lock, split washers and nyloc nuts, plus replaced all the missing washers. Should be good to go now. I also noticed my plate expires February 2022, so I renewed it for 3 more years. Still glad I heard the plate hit the ground behind me!