Ran into trypticon at TRU today. My hips or tail don't feel too bad, but I still might do some exploratory surgery to see if the couple transformations I've done have harmed anything. If anything I find the hinge that connects the hip assembly to the torso more of a pain to get locked into place. The only issue I would have is my belly door is warped a smidge and while you can't tell by looking at it, it does prevent it from latching securely, though you can get it to lock in if you are careful. Seeing as how much my son likes feeding him titan masters though I imagine the door will spend most of the time open. But overall, love him. Much more so than fort max. Base mode is nice and actually thought out.
I got mine at Cape Cod, Hyannis TRU, batch number 71461. It was good other than the tight hip joints as usual. I did the toydojo suggestion for 10 minutes with each spring. It WORKED WONDERS!!!! The hips move just like Metroplex's now. Tight but buttery. I have no problem with the chest door. His tail seems fine. I don't hear a loud kachung just the usual duuung with a spring. It sticks fine in both modes for now. I tried to take the tail apart, but I stopped after 7 screws, because I have no clue where the others are. Full Tilt is in great shape. My older brother is putting the stickers on for me. 32 years and I suck at stickers.
I never did find instructions on the tail. My apologies for lack of pics, but what worked for me was unscrew the two swing-arms from the tail tip (they hold the purple roller piece) and remove the whole tip intact. Swing one of the arms down so you can see the screw hole, remove all screws, and CAREFULLY open it and lift it away. It won't come all the way apart. Be super careful not to crack anything, I hated this part. I glued the ratchet to the cross-peice, and also added a bit of Cube Lube (safe for rubik's cubes, I hope safe for plastics in general) and lubed the teeth a bit. After the glue set, I screwed it back together. No more 'clunk!' noise (I did see where the cross piece was bending) and the tail stays were it is supposed to. You do NOT have to unscrew anything on the main body. All working parts are on the tail proper. I hope I never have to do that again! But so far I haven't had to cut any springs, cube lube on the teeth and the bit of glue on the tail ratchet did everything.
I'm really glad Hasbro left out the electronic gimmick in this titan. My Metroplex sounds stopped working after 3 years, new batteries still nothing. I never put batteries in Fort Max. The electronics aren't what they used to be, my 10 year old figures with electronics still function. I did a minor mod tonight by removing Full Tilts attachment piece. Now the chest is entirely transparent and doesn't have an oversized car hanging off it. Full Tilt looks like a hover tank with the base attached. All it takes to remove is squeezing the tabs on the inside of the door. The chest panel is exquisitely detailed under the mounting piece. Waiting to get a better look at this monstrosity, keep finding more detail with every instance.
Update. After my brother got all the stickers on and moved the hips around a ton I looked at the inside of one of them no stress on anything. It's safe to assume the other is the same as it feels the exact same in tightness and motion. So it looks like the toydojo suggestion is a good one.
Yeah, the toy dojo suggestion makes sense. Really makes me think the same fix could be applied to the tail section, but I'm too chicken to try to disassemble it that much without a guide.
This toy looks great. I am contemplating buying this now or waiting. I bought a metroplex at $150 but now I can buy it sub $100. Is the consensus that it will be the same with trypticon?
We don't know. It could be on clearance for $50 this Christmas or it could be sold out in a month and then available only from scalpers.
Looking at my hip ratchets I didn't see any signs of stress on anything, so those appear to be good. I did compress the springs for a while just to be safe, and that feels good now. However in digging around in there I did discover why one of my legs was having trouble staying perpendicular to the ground in base mode. Deeper in the hip assembly is this section, and the green piece was halfway stuck between open and closed: This was preventing the hip from being flat against the body while transformed. Getting in there was a pain but the ratchets that control that movement are not symmetrical and needed to be rotated 90 decrees in order for the part to be flush with the body while at rest. While doing all this I did check out my tail and I do think I'm going to poke around in there. Moved a couple times okay, but now seems more difficult to move.
Had a go at opening up the tail, need to go back and glue it. That last screw is a pain to find since you have to move the garage arm out past its normal stopping point to see it
I spent between 2-3 hours stickering him up today--Hasbro missed so many places where they could have given him stickers. Reprolabels, when will you come to the aid of the beast?
I'm really liking the looks of this figure. Do to budget (or lack thereof) I'll have to wait for a sale to get him. Also, I'll only get him if there's a relatively non-invasive way to fix the hip problem.
I was going to wait for the Takara version, but I saw him in person at a friend's house recently and was blown away. Wow. A giant metallic Transforming dinosaur?? And the pictures don't do him justice, seeing him in person was a jaw dropper. I'm now on the hunt!
Just trying to see what that part looks like. Haven't seen in featured in any reviews or photos yet. Appreciate it!
Funny story.... The "toy room" in my house has basically one spot left for my girlfriend's "stuff"....its all basically relegated to the bottom shelf portion of a three tiered shelf off in the corner of the room. Anyway, yesterday morning I wake up to a long cord for her phone thrown on my desk....and a note that said: "I tried to put this away in my space after you went to bed, but I couldn't because there was a gigantic plastic dinosaur in the way."
I appreciate that she conceded defeat and didn't start a hopeless fight with a nearly unstoppable decepticon citybot.
