Sue - It looks like your passenger side is the one that's farthest away right? When I first put my plate on the holes were about that far from each other and I was like WTF... I ended up pushing HARD on the bottom of the plate with my left hand while I turned the bolt by hand with my right until it caught the threads. It looks to me like one side of your plate isn't all the way on - maybe you need to wiggle it back and forth to get it to fit right? I think you mentioned putting spacers and what-not behind the plate to protect the cladding - maybe you have too much of that?

I dunno, very weird. Have you tried the rear plate yet? If you think the front is hard...