So. we've all seen Crefigz's Cannon Bumblebee with the split chest (See it here!), and so far no one has posted a tutorial on how to do it. Having some free time, I took a whack at it and here's what I came up with:




Not bad, right? Well, here's how you do it:


First off, your tools and materials:

Tools:
- Something to cut or melt plastic. I use a wood-burning attachment for a soldering iron. I'd prefer a Dremel, but I don't have one.
- A small screwdriver.
- An X-Acto knife for some shaping and cleanup.
Materials:
- Two small pins, appx. 1/4" long (I used the small ones from inside the legs of a scrap 'Bee I had in the box.)
- Two small screws, appx. 1/4" long (I used some scrap ones I had in the box)
- Adhesive of some kind
- A Cannon Bumblebee

First off, start by transforming 'Bee to robot mode. Inside his chest, you should see two screws holding the sides in place. Remove those screws, and remove the chest piece.

The chest piece will have small pegs to the side of where they were screwed in. Snap those off, and either cut or sand down the stubs.

Now, here comes the tricky part. The chest piece should look like a 'U' without the head/hood snapped in. You need to separate the sides from the center. Just cut straight down. Make the cut as straight and as thin as possible.

When you're done, you should have the two side chest pieces, and the center chest piece.

Insert the pins into the holes on the underside of the hood. It should look like this:




Take the side chest pieces, and cut a groove large enough for the pins to slide in. It should be about an eighth of an inch from the front, and basically to fit in the back. It should look like so:




Make the cut deep enough to fit the pin, but not deep enough to prevent the peg from reinserting. Here's the depth I settled on:




Basically, the goal here is to create a slot that will allow the center chest piece to slide back and forth from robot to car mode to allow for transformation. In car mode it goes forward, and in robot mode it goes back.

Take the two small long screws and reattach the side chest pieces. Screw them in just enough to keep them from falling out. The transformation will involve pulling those out and shifting them to the right position.




Now, slide the head/hood assembly into the slots. Position the bottom bumper piece and reattach using adhesive of some kind. I used super glue. You can use whatever works for you. Position carefully.

It should look like this:



And, you're done! If you've done it right, the pins will keep the hood/head/center bumper assembly in place (although it may fall out if you spread the chest apart too much) and the grooves will let it slide forward during transformation. It should look like this:



You'll notice there's a lot of empty space in the chest. I position the wheels at an angle. It's not much, but it works.

When in car mode, the front should look like this:



Happy Modding!




(In the original discussion thread, there are some comments that add additional information for this modification; they are included here for additional help. ~Superquad7)

I used Crefigz's figure as kind of the inspiration, and decided to find a way to make it work. I think the pivot point is the same (it's too obvious not to be), but the pics that Crefigz posted make it difficult to tell exactly what he did.

The reason I built in the sliding function was when I was test fitting pieces I needed a way to A) keep the center chest piece in place, and B)allow it to pivot for transformation. The peg and slide system worked. I actually hadn't intended for it to slide forward, but when I was doing assembly I noticed it sat too far back, so I extended the cuts into the chest pieces.

Thanks for the compliments. I tried to make it as clear as possible.

* * * *

Re: the empty space in the chest: there's not much you can do about that. That space is occupied by 'Bee's shoulders and head in vehicle mode. It's a pretty tight fit.

Unfortunately not. The chest pieces on that connect using a mechanism that only allows them to move up and down, not side to side.

You could hypothetically cut along the panel lines, then find some way to have the front panels pivot, but it'd be a lot of work for not a lot of gain.

Nope. Regular 'Bee has a totally different upper torso than Cannon 'Bee.

I had considered that originally, but because of the fitment it doesn't work. You have to actually take the bumper out and then slide the pieces in place.