Will A Traxxas Slash Body Fit A Rustler?

If you have an extra Traxxas Slash body lying around because you don’t use it anymore or because you simply bought the wrong body you might be wondering if you can use it on a Rustler chassis. Afterall, both of these are made by Traxxas so it makes sense that the bodies might be interchangeable, but are they? 

A Traxxas Slash body will fit on a Rustler chassis but you have to modify the body significantly and it could possibly look a little bit odd. This is because the Slash’s chassis is quite a bit longer than the Rustlers, so, naturally, it has a longer wheelbase. 

As long as you don’t mind having to adjust the body or having it look a little odd then you can certainly put a Slash body on a Rustler. However, just because you can do it doesn’t mean that they are truly interchangeable since modifications have to be made to the body and even then it still won’t look exactly right. 

Many people try and do this with varied results depending on their experience and how good they are at cutting and adjusting the Slash body so this certainly isn’t something that a beginner should try and do unless they are willing to live with it looking a little bit messy.

If you want to see some of the best RC bodies on the market you can find them by clicking here. 

What bodies will fit a Traxxas Rustler?

Any RC body can fit on a Traxxas Rustler chassis if you are willing to make enough modifications but some bodies like the Proline, Parma, Traxxas and JConcepts bodies fit much more easily on the Traxxas Rustler.. 

The Pro-Line GMC Sierra’s body is one of the ones that will fit the best. .

Fitting a new body is not incredibly difficult as you don’t need to move any parts on the Rustler. You just have to pull off the previous or current body and after that you can put the new body. 

If the body is bigger than the Rustler chassis then you have to cut the extended parts and likely modify the wheel wells as well. RC bodies are surprisingly not very hard to cut so you can cut the body by just using regular scissors in most cases. 

The biggest difficulty in making a body fit the Rustler that isn’t designed for it is that often people aren’t able to get the cuts exactly right and so the body looks a little ugly. As long as you are willing to put up with the bad aesthetics then you can use just about any body on the Rustler that you want. 

Another thing to consider is that when you use a body that isn’t specifically designed for the Rustler you will likely have to move or replace the body mounts to fit the new body that you are using. This can be quite a bit of additional time and some extra money as well that people often don’t think about when changing bodies. 

How do you cut an RC body properly?

If you decide that it is worth your time and effort to try and fit a Slash body onto your Rustler chassis then you have to be prepared for some cutting… but how do you do that without it looking horrible? 

If you are planning to change your RC vehicle body by yourself then you have to cut the body and sometimes you will also need to modify it to match with your car’s chassis. In order to cut your new body, you just need some simple tools. These tools are available in most houses and no special tools are really required to cut the RC body. 

Tools you need:

• Curved scissors
  
• Sharp Knife
  
• Drill
  
• Permanent market
  
• A rotary tool with a sanding drum (optional)
  

If you have all of these tools then you can start.

Mark your Holes: These days, it’s not uncommon to purchase a body that has numerous mounting hole locations in order to fit the needs of several different vehicles. No need to worry, just line it up to your body post and figure out which holes fit with your vehicle. Once you have done this then use a permanent marker to mark the hole. Don’t worry about the permanent part of the market. You can use some window cleaner to remove the marker later. 

Trim the Big stuff: Now it is time to trim the large parts of the body. The easiest and simple way to trim a body is by scoring it with a sharp knife. Dull blades make scoring far more difficult than it needs to be.

Use Scissors: Sometimes using a knife is very difficult to cut the RC body parts properly especially when you are a beginner. You can use curved scissors to complete the task properly. Curved scissors help you to cut the curved places without any scratches or too much difficulty.

Drilling Holes: Remember you marked places to create a hole? Now it’s time to drill them out. Drill the hole until it is about ¾ of the way through then flip the body over and finish the hole on the underside.

Clean it Up: You have now made your body mount holes, trim the extra-large section of your car body and trim the curved parts by using curved scissors. Now it is time to clean the whole body properly. 

You can use soap and water to clean the body but be careful as many freshly cut parts can be sharper than you may realize so go easy.

Now that you have trimmed and cleaned up your new RC body it should be a perfect fit for your RC vehicle. By following all of these methods any body can fit with any other vehicle, not only the Traxxas Slash body with a Rustler. 

How do I fix my RC body? 

You can easily change your RC car’s body but what can you do if you end up damaging the body while racing your RC car? 

The easiest way to fix a damaged body is to simply remove it and put a new body on. Assuming you don’t have the money or don’t want to spend the money on a new body then repairing the old damaged one is actually quite simple. 

Rather than writing out the steps on how to fix an Rc car body I will let you watch the video below so you can see exactly how to do it. 

Conclusion

I hope this article has been helpful in answering your questions about putting a Slash body on a Rustler as well as how you can make virtually any RC body work with any RC chassis. Ultimately you have to decide if the extra work required is worth the end result of using that other body or if it would be better to simply go out and buy a body that is designed for the Rustler. 

Many people prefer to make their RC cars unique and putting different bodies on the chassis of their RC car is the easiest way to do it. Once you have trimmed and molded a body to fit a particular chassis you can put it on or take it off whenever and you don’t have to purchase a bunch of different RC  cars!