ROTF figure fixes: Sideswipe chest, Breakaway neck

Sweet! That chest part was starting to annoy me while trying to pose the fig.

Interestingly enough, My sideswipe's chest snaps in tight, with no problems what so ever. In fact I was amazed at how tight all of his joints are. You'd think the quality control would be more consistant.

Neat, thanks.

I will try this on my Sideswipe tonight. If you ignore the feet that dont work, Sideswipe is a pretty decent deluxe figure.

Edit: The feet arnt such a problem after all, you just need to fiddle to get them to the correct angle.

i just tried the sideswipe one (since i only own him and soundwave right now. only picking up movie only characters right now.) and i don't have glue but it works. however, if you move the chest area back. the latch. it will come undone again. oh well. still. great fix to the figure. thanks jin. even though the chest is still loose, don't think i've done it right yet though.

I dont have a problem with my Sideswipe'd chest coming unlatched.

NuclearConvoy wrote:I dont have a problem with my Sideswipe'd chest coming unlatched.

Yeah neither do I. He's actually pretty tight all around.

the chest on mine is tight. the problem with my sideswipe is that his left ankle fender has difficulty turning during transformation, because the fender bumps into his ankle henge. (hard to explain). his right ankle fender is just fine. i'll cut away a little from the fender eventually

On Sideswipe, I just loosened the 2 screws under the chest and put a little pressure on the front while I retightened the screws. now it works perfectly!

wow i must be pretty lucky..!! i bought all the movie tfs that r out right now doubles of each so i could open one and keep one in box, well every figure i opened has really tight joints nothing poping out nothing not staying latched so i must of got lucky this time around..swipe stands fairly easy for me to when i pose him, usually stands on the first try...i can live without breakaways head not moving.. i dont like to modify them, to worried it wont look right or ill screw it up, so i live with the minor imperfections. way i look at it is they r toys they are not gonna be perfect

Any suggestions on how to fix Rampage's legs?

In 'bot mode, the springy hip joint won't allow his thighs to stay bent forwards.

Thanks for the tips Jin. My sideswipe is great, but I see how it can be an issue. I'll keep in mind to mod it if the latch becomes loose.

I modded my breakaway by dremeling out the front half of the canopy as specified, but instead of cutting away at the rubber nosecone I cut/carved out a notch in the blue swing bar and achieved the same result.

I also noticed that the front landing gear bar didn't sit flush with it's green housing frame when in robot mode, so I cleaned up the part by removing the remnants of the injection stem (near the pivot axle, on its underside).

I didn't remove the two halves for the landing gear bay from the underside of the fuselage as you did because by cleaning up the landing gear already the part sits more flush and I noticed that the fuselage wouldn't be able to go past the body swing bar in robot mode anyways.

***EDIT***
Breakaway is pretty nice now with the mod thanks to Jin. Too bad they didn't make him a voyager size since he is a jet. They could've done so much more with the character/mold/idea. Hell, I just wished all of the deluxes were voyager sized, lol.

Oh, yea... I also filed out the small 'U' shape on the back half of the head to give it a backwards tilt using a needle file and cleaned up the eye piping with nail polish remover (since I didn't have pure acetone laying around).

[JRX] wrote:Any suggestions on how to fix Rampage's legs?

In 'bot mode, the springy hip joint won't allow his thighs to stay bent forwards.

Ah, that's an easy one. If you spin his hips around forward the spring disengages so you can pose the legs without them springing back down. Then spin the legs back around to activate the spring for jackhammer mode when you need it

Jin Saotome wrote:

[JRX] wrote:Any suggestions on how to fix Rampage's legs?

In 'bot mode, the springy hip joint won't allow his thighs to stay bent forwards.

Ah, that's an easy one. If you spin his hips around forward the spring disengages so you can pose the legs without them springing back down. Then spin the legs back around to activate the spring for jackhammer mode when you need it...

Thanks! I was tempted to try something like that before asking, but I was afraid of ending up with floppy-legged Rampage instead of a springy-legged one!

A HUGE thank you! My breakaway can now look around. His head not popping up was makin' me crazy!

Just as a side note, my Sideswipe had no issues with pegging the chest at all - his biggest issues were with getting the arms back in place going back to car mode, but I eventually got it going. Well, other than his difficulties standing up, that is.

Valandar wrote:Just as a side note, my Sideswipe had no issues with pegging the chest at all - his biggest issues were with getting the arms back in place going back to car mode, but I eventually got it going. Well, other than his difficulties standing up, that is.

I noticed some people had problems with that while others didn't. And sometimes all it takes is tightening the screws, other times nothing but the pressure fix works. RoTF quality control seems to be iffy.

Those of you that have found a Fallen figure were probably all "WOOHOO!" at his unique design, just itching to get him out of the package. And if you're like me, once out you were suddenly all "AAAARGGGGGHHH!" as his lower legs popped off every time you tried to bend his knees. Sometimes his arms popping off if you had a weak connector. Here's a fix for that! Basically involves taking the leg apart and inserting a particular kind of screw into the lower leg to keep them in place. You'll need a dremel or other rotary tool for this one.

Another nice fix, well done.

HASBRO, are you taking notes!! I know you welcome fan involvement with the franchise but don't you think leaving it up to your customers to fix your failures is a bit much?

Honestly, I'M frightened to buy anything else in case it crumbles in my hand.

Cheers to Jin once again!!! I am a big fan of his customizations. I can't wait to see what u do to fix that horrible Evergreen Pine-sol Paint job on the Fallen!!!

Leader Prime, Human Alliance BB and maybe other HA figs. Thats all I'm getting and everytime I see that Jin or anyone else has to devise a "fix" for them, I know I'm making the right choice.

This is just horrible.

Hmmm...Nothing wrong with my Fallen and Sideswipe. I do have to try that trick with Rampage.

Thanks for the Rampage tips Jin! Incredible! You really do your homework! Can you come up with a way to get Sideswipe to stand with his heelspurs folded in versus out? That may be a tall order.... No biggie if you can't--he's SOOOO much easier to pose with them pointed out to the back.

Ravage XK wrote:Another nice fix, well done.

HASBRO, are you taking notes!! I know you welcome fan involvement with the franchise but don't you think leaving it up to your customers to fix your failures is a bit much?

Honestly, I'M frightened to buy anything else in case it crumbles in my hand.

Luckily, we have guys like Jin here who look out for us fans! Thanks dude!!!

Would you believe it, I actually bought Breakaway just to try out your head-posing guide. And yeah, he's a good figure and not so bad as I initially thought he would be once his head becomes poseable. Sideswipe, he seems to hold perfectly fine without gluing in a tab, and I don't think I would want to try out drilling holes in my Fallen. I'm perfectly fine with Falen's limbs popping off (my copy hold together quite firmly anyway), but wouldn't just applying superglue to parts of these joint posts do a decent job in tightening them as well? Will be supergluing parts of Rampage later (shovel keeps disconnecting from connection point and unlike Fallen it gets rather irritating).

Thanks for the tips!

Breakaway is pretty smart. I have started to repaint him though to try and match the cgi image posted earlier in this thread. Currently I am applying an aluminium effect undercoat to all the blue and green bits. I will then paint over and any undercoat showing through should look like wear or damage to the paint. Not done anything like this before so Im unsure on how it will turn out.

Warbreaker wrote:Would you believe it, I actually bought Breakaway just to try out your head-posing guide. And yeah, he's a good figure and not so bad as I initially thought he would be once his head becomes poseable. Sideswipe, he seems to hold perfectly fine without gluing in a tab, and I don't think I would want to try out drilling holes in my Fallen. I'm perfectly fine with Falen's limbs popping off (my copy hold together quite firmly anyway), but wouldn't just applying superglue to parts of these joint posts do a decent job in tightening them as well? Will be supergluing parts of Rampage later (shovel keeps disconnecting from connection point and unlike Fallen it gets rather irritating).

Thanks for the tips!

Some Sideswipes have really loose chests no matter what you do so that fix applies only to them. The two I have were all loose. However the fallen's plugs are made of unpaintable plastic so superglue won't apply there.

Wanna make Demolisher's wheels spin? It's really easy. I probably didn't even need to take pics but here they are in case you want to see them. Now I can put his arms down and wheel him across my desk, wheee!

Here's a fix, well more like a custom mod to make Rampage's elbows work. Hasbro had the right idea with the large gear there, they just didn't separate the lower elbow. That's really all you need to do and shave down the inside rim of the gear. You'll need a dremel, hobby knife, hobby hacksaw (or heat up your knife blade so it can slice through plastic) and some glue/epoxy. Oh yeah, and a screwdriver.

Is there a fix for RotF Leader Megs' left leg not snapping in place in vehicle mode?

Valandar wrote:Is there a fix for RotF Leader Megs' left leg not snapping in place in vehicle mode?

Hmmm, when I pick him up in the next few days I'll have a look.

And here's some shots of Rampage singing opera with his new elbows.

Jin Saotome wrote:Wanna make Demolisher's wheels spin? It's really easy. I probably didn't even need to take pics but here they are in case you want to see them. Now I can put his arms down and wheel him across my desk, wheee!

I dont get how to do the mod for him. Can you explain it a bit more please?

Jin, you made my day by posting that mod on Rampage.

It'll be the biggest mod I've ever attempted, but your instructions looked detailed enough even for me.

A million thanks.