Complete front end for a Tonka Bronco

thingiverse

Now that I have a 3D printer in my garage, I thought it was time to give my rc truck's front end a radical makeover. It's something I've been wanting to do for years - merge the LED lights and a deeper grille into one sleek structure without ruining the vintage vibe of my Tonka Bronco. The tricky part was styling it so it wouldn't look like a modern front end slapped onto a 70s-style truck. I also wanted the yellow truck bodywork to seamlessly integrate with the new front end while adding black bumpers and a grille bezel that fit perfectly with the current color scheme and maintained some of the original Tonka style. With this in mind, plus the fact that the whole assembly is larger than my printer bed, I decided to break it down into 7 parts: the main body, grille bezel, grille bars, bumpers (2), and clear lamp lenses (2). During design, I created four sets of grille bars, so I've included all four designs as STL files for people to choose from. Each one has identical fixings, ensuring a perfect fit into the Grille Bezel. The lenses are precision-cut from 1mm thick polycarbonate Lexan, which is unbreakable and resistant to scratches. The grille mesh was sourced from a company specializing in scale metal mesh for model making, while the LED lights came from Hobbyking - a popular destination for RC enthusiasts (https://hobbyking.com/en_us/hobbyking-1-5-and-1-8-off-road-led-light-set-with-functional-brake-lights.html). Everything else was printed using my 3D printer. The assembly relies on six screws to keep everything locked in place. Here's the step-by-step assembly sequence: 1) Slot the bumpers into the grille bezel. 2) Add the grille mesh and push the grille bars into the bezel, securing the mesh and bumpers with two center screws. 3) Attach the LED lights to the lamp can using double-sided tape and feed the wire leads through a hole at the rear of the lamp can. 4) Insert the lenses into slots within the grille opening in the main body. The lenses are secured by legs on the rear of the Bezel once it's attached in step 5. 5) Slot the outer ends of the bumpers into the main body and secure the assembly with four screws in the rear corners of the bezel from inside the main body. 6) Finally, bolt the whole assembly onto the front of the Tonka body after removing the stock grille. This requires longer bolts due to the deeper new front end. This truck is driven FPV (First Person View), where I control it while wearing Fatshark goggles and looking through an onboard camera. You can get a glimpse of what this experience is like on YouTube: https://youtu.be/UVX8bOjsIS8