This is a mod I did to my first Classics voyager Optimus Prime close to four and a half years ago. I saw him sitting on a shelf the other day and realized I never shared this mod. I figured it was about time. One constant criticism of this mold is the arm panels. For some reason those never bothered me. What really got on my nerves was the big ass grill and front axle hanging off his back. It disrupted the rather nice silhouette of this figure. Here's what I did about it. First you want to remove the four screws from the back of his lower torso. Separate the lower torso taking care not loose any pieces of the ratcheting joint inside. There will be a screw in the middle of the back half of the torso. Remove that screw. Just as a little optional step I forgot to show take the upper torso of Prime and flip it over. You'll see 3 screws. Take them out lift up on the panel. This is the seats and steering wheel in side the cab. If you want you can paint them to add a little detail. You might be able to see I painted the seats black. Give a tug on the whole grill/front bumper and it will pop right out. Reassemble Prime once again taking care not loose any parts to the ratcheting joint and you'll have slimmed down Optimus Prime. You'll probably notice here on mine I removed the blue paint from the shoulders and added a craptastic home made Autobot badge. This mod kind of does to Classics Optimus what the wing mod did for Classics Megatron. It improves, in my opinion, the aesthetic of the figure however you sacrifice the clean transformation. When transforming Optimus just spread sides of the cab open a little and peg the grill assembly into the hole where the screw was. Just like the Classics Megatron mod you won't be able to tell anything has been done in alt. mode. The connection is so secure when you tab in the grill you can do this... It was long overdue, but I hope you enjoy my simple mod.
BRILLIANT! I am all about minor partsforming if it improves the gigure, this is a great idea. Thanks!
Huh, I'm honestly not much for part-forming, but something occurs to me... Couple this with the arm kibble mod that moves the side panels onto the bumper, and you could completely streamline Prime with one *pop*.
Cool mod! I agree with Kouri, coupled with the arm mods, you can have it remove all in one piece. My custom Prime WIP has the doors removed from the arms & attached to the bumper so it all folds up into a backpack (albeit a huge one) on his back. I may go a step further & streamline it someday using this mod of yours. If I do, I'll toss you credit! Thanks for sharing, man!
Thanks guys I'm glad you like it. That is a good idea Kouri, and as I said in my first post for some reason the arm panels never bothered me all that much. I think I'll let hXcpunk23 try it first and see how it looks.
Typically I disapprove of mods to this mold that involve removing the kibble, however I do see the advantage this grants the silhouette, if nothing else, since that bumper does kind of make his lower torso look wider than it really is. In the end though I'd rather not partsform classics prime any more than need be, what with the 2 guns and all.
I may play around with it and see what I can come up with, but as for now it just joins his trailer in sub-space.
Ok so I decided to remove both kibbles from my ko prime...since I could give two flying birds about. So First of all it holds up ok...although it can't roll on the front wheels cuz the arm door panels (arm kibble in bot mode) is lying on it. Thanks for making my ko prime slimmer. I'll be repainting this guy for fun...n practice.
Hey beangrower that looks great. Now you say it can't roll on the front wheels any more because of the arm panels. Where is the clearance issue with the wheels? Is it something that some filing could fix?
i think it's more an issue of being s KO n the fact the side panels r only attached at the grill only. not a big deal for me.
Hmmm. In the KO the arm panels are held by screws instead of pins right? I might just get one of those now.
