WLToys 12428 Baja Bumper Kit

Last crawled date: 4 years, 4 months ago

This is a Baja bumper and motor cage kit for the WLToys 12428 when running the SummitLink Beetle body shell. If you want mounts for the shell, check out my other Things.
Update: I broke the bumper at the base of the posts running in cold weather so I'll be taking a look at trying to get some more strength into it. I ran some long crews all the way through to replace the posts and that works and might last longer. I'm not really surprised it broke, but I was hoping it would last longer. Wishful thinking given how easy it is to send the 12428 on a cartwheel to hell. The motor cage has held up perfectly even taking a couple of hits.
The bumper mount can be used with stock screws but you can also add a couple of M2.5 in the headlight holes for more strength. I made the bars (bumper) separate because something is going to break and I kinda hope it's the bars because it's easy to replace them. Bottom line, I made this stuff to save the body from abuse, not so much to last. The motor cage can be attached with zip ties, glue, or whatever you have. You'll need 4 - M2.5x15mm screws or you could use DIY pins (nails) and hot glue or some other sort of creativity.
There are narrow and wide bumper bars with the narrow being more suited to the Baja (I think). The wide should work well with the FY01 Desert truck body shell. I ordered that shell a while back because it was sooo cheap, but it arrived pretty mangled so that was a disappointment. I went down the path of trying to use the truck body on the 12428 without the roll cage but that was a mistake. It's MUCH easier to mount bodies to the cage. The SummitLink Beetle shell is pretty sweet in my opinion and Amazon ships it in a box so it should show up pristine (no kick backs, I just like the shell). Be sure to slap some 200mph tape on the weak spots so it lasts longer because the lexan isn't super thick.
As always, use at your own risk.
Wrench to drive or drive to wrench?