I saw a fleet shop in Tacoma using old license plates as shims

They were working on a set of older Freightliner M2s and had a stack of bent plates next to the bench. The mechanic said a 2008 Washington plate is almost exactly 1/16th of an inch thick, perfect for adjusting a door hinge on a cab that was out of spec. It's a clever use of scrap metal you'd normally toss. Has anyone else run into a good shop hack using junk like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_amy14d agoMost Upvoted

But @seth_green85's right, that hack is useless for anything but a flat gap.

the_henry19d ago

That's actually genius. I mean, we used to keep a coffee can of old feeler gauge blades that were too bent for real work, but they were perfect for spacing out sensor brackets on the fly. Saved so many trips to the parts room for those little shim washers. Just grab a bent .020 blade and snap off what you need.

seth_green8519d ago

But what do you do when you need a shim that's NOT a flat piece? Sometimes you need a curved shim or a little wedge to fix a weird angle. Those old blades are only good for flat gaps. I've had to make my own out of aluminum can strips or even sand down a plastic zip tie for weird jobs. The feeler gauge trick is solid, but it only solves half the problem.