Hello everyone. Well, I was able to get my hands on an extra Heavytread and I wanted to see what I could do to modify him to fit FP Bruticus. I saw the only two tutorials or custom pics of other board members, but I decided I wanted to try a different approach.

Basically...I'll start off with saying that I cannibalized (sort of) one of Bruticus' limbs for the energon port. There's also some styrene involved.....and I got mine from here:

Odds & Ends (evg9002) Evergreen Model Scratch Building Plastic Sheets Rods Tubes Strips

Thanks to hXcpunk23 for the referral!

Of course, you can always get the Styrene from your local hobby store. So....here it goes:

*note* Please forgive the "badly edited by paint photos"   I don't have photoshop or any other snazzy picture editing programs  

1: You'll want to first remove the four screws as highlighed below:



Once you've got that out of the way, gently pull it apart to expose the energon port and remove it (pay special attention here as there is a small clear orange piece inside the chest that serves as the ratcheting part for the energon port. You'll see it inside on the piece/part on the left in the picture below. It is not glued on or attached in any way and can fall out if not careful. DON'T LOSE IT) :



You're going to want to remove the screw that's holding the energon port together:



Once that's done, pull it apart and get ready to use the styrene.

Now my apologies first, I wasn't able to take a pic of all the pieces or measurements, so....you're gonna want to kinda eyeball it as best you can to ensure proper fitment.

2:

This is one of the pieces I used from that styrene odds and ends (I'll call it the flat piece):



I also used the smallest sized tube they had and I think the smallest "square" shaped stick too.

The sectioned styrene I showed earlier.....I only used a width of two (not the 5 pictured) and super glued them into one of the halves of the energon port. This is about as wide as you'd want:



Remember to measure/eyeball it so that its not too long.

in short do this:

- Cut the styrene piece to a length where you can handle it and dry fit each piece to ensure fitment.

- Dry fitting: Put both halves of the energon ports together WITH the styrene piece in to see if there is any unsightly gaps. If there is, cut away just enough to allow both halves to fit together again with no gaps if possible. Do this for each piece. (Do not cut away too much. Ideally, you'd want each end of the styrene pieces to be able to make contact with insides of the energon ports)

- Gluing: After you have made absolutely, positively sure that each piece of styrene fits properly so that no gaps would be present when you've put the energon port back together.....glue each styrene piece individually.

In the picture below, the red lines represent the sectioned pieces/flat pieces and the red squares represent the "square stick" piece I used and where I glued them. More importantly, the squares and flat pieces serve as a surface to glue the tube onto as well after you've inserted it into the hole in the energon port. This is so that the tube doesn't move around.




At this point, you'll want to glue the two halves together. I should also add that when I put the styrene tube in, it does stick out a hair on each end......you'll see why when you dry fit the piece in.

Once that is done, you should have something that looks like this:





I'm probably going to try to make some kinda styrene plate to cover that back end as I don't want the pieces exposed like it is in the pic....but that's later. I just wanted to see if this would work first. BTW, this is the superglue I used:



^^ Real easy to work with too!

(continued in second post)

oy....  Did you cannibalize both limbs already? If not, you only need that one energon port.

Oh, I should probably explain the discrepancy between the colors of the energon ports. Some of the pictures show a dark grey one and others show a "desert" colored one? I used the desert colored one (the one from the green limb) to customize. But I forgot to take pics along the way so I only took apart the dark grey ones to show the steps I took. The dark grey one is still intact  

No problem   I just hope it works out as well for anyone else as it did for me. If you (or anyone else) does this, whether you use the same styrene pieces I used or different ones, I have a small favor to ask  


If you can help me get the measurements so I can update this tutorial for everyone....that'd be greatly appreciated!

That's a good idea....I'm gonna have to tinker with this to figure out how to have the leg not run into the PCC pegs/posts on the rear of the tank..... hmmmm.......

I could have sworn there was a pic of this too. Time to do some searching!

*edit* I found it...nevermind. Looks like it was a pic posted by another member. The pcc pegs/posts were removed. Now to figure out how to do that and we'll be good to go  

Thanks!  

Nice work! The way I did it was more MacGyver-ish but my ROTF Brawl still functions; all I took from him was the actual Energon combiner port. I did cut off those ugly blue PCC combiner pegs on the back of Heavytread to improve knee articulation (I don't plan to have him as a PCC combiner anymore anyway).

Then I threaded a drill bit head (from a Dremel 3000) through the opening of the port and padded it with two rubber pieces (also from the Dremel set) and two springs (from normal click ink pens) to act as friction/tension in the knee joint to hold everything together (nothing is glued). Then I just threaded the ends of the drill bit head into the preexisting recesses (molded holes) within Heavytread's interior treads at the rear.

Some parts-forming involved, yes, but no permanent damage done to my ROTF Brawl (and I display in combined Bruticus mode 99% of the time anyway). And Bruticus still stands and poses by himself very well. I would post pictures of my mods but most of my TF collection is unavailable (boxed up and shipped back to the States for an impending move from overseas).

Thanks for sharing this mod! I'll add it to my list for future reference to anyone interested in making their own Heavytread-to-Brawl-leg!

http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/radicons-customs/507085-heavytread-fp-bruticus.html
http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/radicons-customs/436308-wip-g1-bruticus-maximus.html
http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/radicons-customs/422023-project-bruticus.html
http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/radicons-customs/327853-process-shapeways-projects.html
http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/transformers-fan-art/384034-fakebuskers-shapeways-thread.html
http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/radicons-customs/468561-bruticus-upgrade-kit.html
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I was able to figure something out  

Yup, I did that! But I first had to cut off the PCC pegs, shave off some excess and tried to sand it down so it'd be smooth...still got some sanding to do, but since its almost there, I took some pics of it anyway. I'll post it up soon.

Cut the tube? Are you talking about the two part plastic piece that screws together and holds both halves together? If so, the hole in the tube is not large enough to fit on the pegs on Heavytread so that wouldn't have worked at all.

Now there's a suggestion....the springs from the clicky pens.....hmmmmmmmm.......gonna have to think about that one here....


But yeah, it was actually your pics I was looking at when trying to figure out what to do with those PCC/pegs.....I did take them off and will be posting more pics up in a bit.

Hello everyone! Knee clearance issue fix!

Tools needed:

- Pin punch

- If you don't have a pin punch, you can get one from a local hardware store   Or......you can use a hammer and nail (NOT recommended unless you KNOW what you're doing, have steady hands and have removed pins before with this method).

- Dremel (to cut off the posts where the PCC pegs were pinned into)

- Box knife/hobby knife (to do some shaving if needed)

- Sandpaper (if you want to smooth out the surface area where you removed the PCC posts)

Step 1: Remove the pins using pin punch preferably. Or...you can try hammer and nail method if you know what you're doing, have steady hands, and have used this method before....though I wouldn't recommend it:



Step 2: Use the dremel and carefully cut off the pieces where the PCC peg/port pins into. You'll want to do it for both sides. Using a dremel is the preferred way, but I'm sure there are other methods.



After you're done, if the surface area isn't smooth or "flat" to your liking, you can use a hobby knife/box knife to shave off any excess plastic. You can also use sand paper as needed or a file even. I did a little bit.....but I was anxious to see what it looked like so I'm not really finished yet  

Step 3: Put it back together and then connect it to Bruticus!





Step 4: Enjoy!

Clear rubber bands?

I'm redoing the energon port due to a new piece I discovered that works way better than the styrene tube. But....the superglue is a BITCH to remove. So I'm soaking the part in nail polish remover (acetone) to soften up the glue first before I redo it. Maybe this time I'll be able to get measurements  

ok small update:


I found a way to make the joint stiff without using super glue in the tube in case anyone is hesitant on using glue in the tube:

****DISCLAIMER***** - The pieces in the picture are not to size. Measurements I took are listed below.

- Take the tube and the thinnest strip of styrene from that odds and ends pack (sorry for the piece showing bent. This was taken after I had finished working on the joint)




- Route the strip through the tube. If you can glue it to one side of the inner wall, then perfect! If not, that's ok too. Keep in mind, you want the strip long enough to stick out both ends of the tube.




Then dry fit it onto Heavytread. The strip is thin enough to where if you pull on it, it can separate from the piece already in the tube. I did that on each end.
The result.....a much more stiff knee joint for FP Bruticus as opposed to a slightly looser one when using super glue.

To test, I moved the energon port back and forth at least 10 times. It did not lose its "stiffness" so I think even just as a "display" piece, this will work out nicely!

So in order to do this, I redid the energon port to try to find a better piece to replace the tube. Well that experiment failed miserably. But I was able to measure out the styrene pieces I used:

7/16 inch -small square stick

1/2 inch - flat piece (bottom), 3/8 inch - flat piece (top)

3/4 inch tube with 3/16 inch diameter

Hope this helps. I'll be awaiting diamchoc's piece used   That may work out even better!

When trying the "mod" to make the tube fit better on the pegs that I actually took it apart (on post 11), and redid all the pieces noted in the earlier posts where I documented the steps. Each time, as long as I eyeballed everything correctly (and made adjustments where needed for the pieces), it fit just fine.

There is a black peg that flips out from Heavytread's alt mode. Granted its in the middle, but it works the same as the two pegs on ROTF Bruticus' original limbs.

3: You should be able to dry fit this onto Heavytread now using these two pegs:





Unfortunately.....with the back flap on, it more or less causes the turret to angle downward. This was because the flap sat underneath that dark green part (shown below) where the turret rotates from:



I didn't like that, so I figured I needed to do a tad bit of cutting:



Again, sorry, no measurements taken. But I eyeballed it and that is what I came up with. The cut is ugly looking....yeah I know....but hey...the turret actually covers it so I don't care   Out of sight, out of mind  



And I put the turret back on to check





Ah....nice and straight! So I dry fitted him on FP Bruticus. There was a problem. It didn't feel stable. The problem is that the styrene tube's diameter was just a hair too big and it didn't grip the pegs on heavytread as tightly as I had wanted. Don't get me wrong, he still stood, but....I don't think anyone would want FP Bruticus to have a chance at falling. So what I did was I removed the energon port and squeezed in some super glue into the styrene tube. Let it sit for a few and then put the energon port back on Heavytread. Then I wiggled the energon port as if it were a knee joint. It was surprisingly MUCH stiffer and better. It proved to be a good method to use. Though my initial want was to find something more like a solid piece to put in the tubing. I couldn't find anything at my disposal so I resorted to the liquid solution instead (pun intended?) What worked out great here is that Heavytread, being a hardly ever played with figure and brand new, the joints are stiff so it held the energon port in nicely! Even with the glue in the tubes (which I think helped to hold it in more solidly). I did however give thought to the fact that the energon port wouldn't sit snug between those two pegs on Heavytread, but.....it seems to work out nicely. (To be honest, FP Bruticus has been standing on my shelf like this for a little over a week now. I held off on this tutorial just in case it really didn't work out well.)

Here he is:



One should probably note that Heavytread's barrel sits right up on Bruticus' knee. Concerns about it stressing out the barrel? Maybe.....but if you're using Bruticus to display as I am, then I wouldn't be worried as its not really "stressing" it to the point of breaking or bending it much or at all. (honestly it barely touches). However, I didn't want to take a chance. Since my goal was to have a working "knee joint", I posed him like this:



The angle of the picture doesn't show it, but now the barrel doesn't come any where near the knee....and its stable (it should be for you too so as long as your Heavytread isn't a sloppy loose mess)   And his knee bends   ....but....without the ratcheting effect that the original limb had. Now....all I would need to do is paint up Heavytread in more or less an olive drab color.....and this would be completed! But that's all for another time. Hope this helps to serve as another option? Or maybe even to help someone brainstorm an improvement on this method   Which I'd be totally stoked to try out!

Oh and yeah...transformation. Heavytread still transforms, but.....as some of you might have guessed, you gotta remove the energon port. Since Bruticus is technically a "parts former" anyway....I didn't think this would be a huge deal.