Here is a simple quick mod to fix the horribly designed waist of Combiner Wars Brawl. There is no cutting required and he still transforms the same with no issues whatsoever. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTd_3kfeuZo&feature=youtu.be
Thanks. A simple solution to help a figure work better is always the best option eh. When flipping the crotch piece in to place, make sure when bringing up the waist you hear the black connectors tab/click first and then snap the waist into place and you'll hear another click. It should look like this when you're done.
And according to your video description, he still transforms without any issues whatsoever? Nicely done! Someone out there will complain about the red lights on his butt/pee hole crotch now, but I'm definitely going to remember this.
Buzzkill here.... I tried the mod on a Brawl I just bought this afternoon. This does make his waist more flush with his body, but it also is lopsided just a bit when viewed from the front. It does work, for a moment. Anything more than a light shake or two, and his waist is floppy again (could be just mine). That's just due to a poor design. No matter which way you have the waist transformed, the "official" way or the modified way, there's just nothing that grips or pegs or tabs in anywhere to hold it together well. You hear clicks, but that's just the plastic moving around the hinges. It's a shame that the first all-new mold to come along in months, for the US version of Combiner Wars, and it's poorly engineered.
Good job man, I didn't want to cut on my brawl and was content on my combaticons being Bruticus forever, this reminds me of the old Energon Superion leg fix.
You might want to take note that G2 Brawl has this mod done to him. So I think this was intended by Hasbro to do this, but when they packaged him and showed off photos of him, they failed to do the "proper" formation.
Actually, in that pic the waist block is upside-down compared to the OP. I don't have the figure to check, but maybe that's the way it is supposed to work?
I'm in the same spot as you based off of not having the figure. But I hope and pray that I get him while I'm at Target. But it probably should work that way. Maybe it was left out in the instructions
I've been messing around with this, and it doesn't seem like any of the options are "correct" transformations in the sense that none really lock together completely well at all, and the configuration we're discussing in this thread means that Brawl loses his waist swivel. Choose whatever way you want to configure him, but I think Hasbro really screwed this one up. Still love him, though. It's Brawl, despite this problem!
Yeah, this reconfiguration doesn't work for mine. No "click" and he still tries to pull a limbo if you even tilt him backwards a bit. IF it works on your Brawl, then I think this works fine as a fan-made alt-transformation... but I don't think this is the "proper" way intended by Hasbro. They wouldn't have molded all that detail into the bottom edge of his crotch if that were the case. And I don't think that the serial # stamp is supposed to be facing forward on his crotch. I'm pretty sure this is one that Hasbro screwed up in the tooling stages. zmog
I am so happy about this. I hated the figure but didn't wanna cut him up, I have been looking at it trying to figure it out, (ya know when the solution is obvious, and you know it is, but you just can't seem to get it) Thank you for sharing. I was worried about a height change. Think I can live with it.
I figured that G2 was a possible running change meant to address the issue Brawl had. Yet if that is a missing step perhaps more will be found for it. I just knew it was too incomplete on that step when I saw G2 Bruticus stock images for Brawl. If Takara shows pics for Brawl without noticeable then we can see what was left out for his robot mode transformation or how they fixed the issue.
Still bothers me that with or without this step, Brawl still is awfully stubby compared to pretty much every other figure in Combiner Wars. I wish they'd found a way to make him look a bit bigger and more heavy duty in bot mode. zmog
Wow. So I just saw this thread/fix...and it's so simple it's almost as if the waist assembly was a production accident in the first place.