I finally saw a universe Ironhide on store shelves here
and like most people i was a little annoyed about the fact that he couldn't look up.

And as i have a spare Sgt Frog/Keroro gunso gundam kit laying around
I thought I'd have a go at fixing that.

I'm sorry there's not any clear pictures of the gundam parts attached to Ironhide,
but I'm still waiting for the superglue on his neck to completely cure before I want to risk popping his head off of the balljoint again.

Hopefully these pictures will be clear enough.

First off..the parts used are taken from a bandai Keroro gunso mech

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like this one.
I picked up a box full of these for cheap a few months back
and I think the parts I'm using are universal to a lot of small gundam kits.

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I had a few socket parts left over and most of the fist will be left untouched.


This is where I was lucky..
If you unscrew Ironhides head and pull it apart, you can see that the halves of his head clamps around a "T" shaped part sticking up from his neck.
and the balljoint socket from this range of robots is almost the exact same size as this "T"

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if you trim off the "mound" at the top it should fit snugly inside ironhides head once it's screwed back together (I tried this with a couple of my spare sockets and i had to shave off a tiny tiny part of the socket parts "lip" to allow the head to screw back togther entirely flush with one of them.. so your mileage may vary)

Now for his neck. Firstly I prepared the Ball for the ball joint by trimming it from the fist

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Like so. (I'm sure I'll find a use for this fist later on)

I then brutally hacked off half of Ironhides neck.
(there are two vertical indentations at the base on either side of his neck,
I chopped down to the top of these and I just have enough clearance for transformation, I think I would take even more off his neck in the future)

I superglued the Ball part from the fist to his neck stump
(the hardest part, as the plastic his neck is made from does not like to glue)
and popped the head on there and all is well.

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And aside from his head I didn't even have to take him apart.
(though it might make it easier to cut the neck down if you remove his upper torso)

I hope this helps at least one person out there!
and let me know if you have any questions.

 

Nice tut! Great mod for 'ol Ironhide! I just found 2 of him out in the wild today at Wally-World. $7.77 for deluxes, you know I grabbed 'em both! May do this to one, the other, I have (in sinister voice) other plans! Hmm. Heh. Ah-Hah Ha! Mwaa-haa-haa-h*cough*cough*hack*!! 

 

great job he looks good.

 

Now Ironhide is more comfortable and free from stiff neck  

 

id0ur, could you please edit your first post and upload all of the photos and then place them in your post instead of hyperlinks to your Photobucket? Thanks!

 

excellent tutorial, and I gotta say, I've seen your flickr before and I am a fan of your photos.

 

pretty sweet it makes all the difference in the world. i actually just reangled mine so he wasent looking at his feet but now i am thinking i will do the balljoint thing