No Tailgate

[txrhubarb]

Hello everyone! I've not posted for a few years, I think.

Well, I ended up with a second Baja after a drought of local, affordable transmissions.

Full disclosure I paid $4200 for a 03 in Yellow with original trim. Leather, elec. seat, etc that had a newly rebuilt engine, a wrecked tailgate, and (unbeknownst to me), an ultimately bad transmission.

It was a fair price considering the chassis has nearly 250k.

Long story short, I wanted to see what a tailgate-less Baja looked like. Rather than drive around with an obviously wFeerecked Baja, I made a few runs to the local hardware store and got some spare framing metal, rubber matting, bolts, and other things I may or may not have needed, but justified by this project.

I've still got to weather-proof it, but for anyone wondering, here is a tailgate-challenged Baja with working (albeit hackjob) license plate bracket. Bonus, the license plate lights work and no wires/holes had to be drilled into the bumper!

Feel free to ask or suggest anything.

For anyone curious, I did end up getting both Bajas fixed.

This yellow one is a 5 speed and the shop installed a WRX transmission and clutch (same final drive ratio) along with the rear diff, which came with an LSD.

My original Baja transmission is fixed now with I think a WRX 1st and 2nd gear. It was the center diff all but everyone kept suggesting to replace the entire transmission as it would be about the same.

[mikenmel08]

Definitely works, nice ingenuity

[Rizzo]

Is that the bed extender clips I see?

[txrhubarb]

Sorry about the gigantic pictures. Maybe I can resize/crop 'em down.

No, not the bed extender clips. They are a type of rigid L-bracket found in the framing section of Home Depot. Galvanized steel, maybe 14-16 gauge. Something like 10x8 inches. I had to cut a couple inches off and drill additional holes in these and other lighter gauge cross pieces to rig up a license plate bracket uhh... bracket.

Whatever dented the tailgate also knocked out the rear bumper hole covers, and I took advantage of this rather than drill into the bumper.

Next step is either find a yellow tailgate somewhere or get some good rubber matting to seal the top and hide the boltwork.

I'm worried about water getting into the top wiring assembly.

[mikenmel08]

I think he is referring to these

[Rizzo]

^^^

Yep.