DIY: Tow Hook License Plate doityourself

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I'm going to work on building my own tow hook license plate holder when I'm at my parent's house this weekend. Anyone care to provide the metal dimensions of your current tow hook bracket? The size of the threaded rod needed?

I figure I can easily measure the distance between the license plate holes but how far back from the plate does the nut attach (looks like a couple inches)? http://www.bimmian.com/TPH#

I'll go check out some metals at the local hardware store in a bit, but thought I'd get some insight from anyone who might have done it before.

[Pip]

I think this DIY has been beat to death because there were plenty of them on e46f and bimmerforums. However, I'm looking into getting some M16X3 rod if the price is right (39" more than enough) so if I have extra I'm more than willing to help some others out. Not sure too many people actually want to do something like this since it is only $40 from bimmian, but I'm interested in doing it myself. I'm learning that searching is most useful before posting. Tapatalk has limited my searching since I'm only a member here at ZHPMafia so I apologize for the first post.