I think I will definitely follow in your footsteps and try to loosen those screws a bit too when mine arrives, do you think a thin layer of super glue on the inside of the crotch piece would help matters at all?

 

Welcome into the light.
Thats some good advice. How hard to disassemble the crotch piece to work in the lube?

 

i would consider applying anything like superglue to be ill advised. Once its applied you cant really remove it.

 

Roger that, I'll just try lubing up his ratchets and loosening the screws a bit when he gets here, I would still like a third party to produce a die cast replacement, I would buy that even if I never get any issues.

 

@Robotmonkeys
Its not overly difficult, you just need to use a small screwdriver, such as a calibration screwdriver.
Use kid gloves, don't force anything that does not want to move. When i had the halves apart i very carefully moved the rachet little by little until the lubricant
was taking effect. seems to have done the trick.

If you decide to disassemble, keep an eye on your screws and don't lose them.
During the disassembly you will notice two screws just below the abdomen and just above the sliding part in question,
they are only visible from behind and hold Blue black and purple panel to the front of the waste. i found removing this piece
was necessary to separate and remove the target parts.
Keep track of all the pieces and screws so you don't misplace anything.

 

Such a well documented review!!! I too echo the same feelings as to how fantastic the figure is. I also wanted to point out that after a good hour or two I have been flexing and rotating the legs to "stress test" the crotch and after looking at it with a nice strong LED light, my swirls match yours on the crotch exactly! In addition on the L/R tabs for the back I have those same exact stress marks out of the package on mine as well.

I also would like to point out, that sure the crotch piece has swirl marks on it, but so does the purple thighs and..... all the blue plastic in his joints in his arms, shoulders, knees, all suffer from the swirl plastic.

What I would like to know is are there other sites in Japan that list the whole crotch explosion issue as a problem. Amazon Japan doesn't seem to have so much about this issue. I guess what I am trying to say, that if the crotch piece is breaking due to the type of plastic used on the purple pieces (crotch, thigh), whose to say the same issue wouldn't occur with areas with the blue plastic.

Also as someone who has the Masters of the Universe Classics Castle Grayskull the playset was around $250.00 and up and that got you a whole lot of "Tonka Tough" plastic (I got it for $165.00 via a sale on Mattel's site a few years back), $300 for Megatron is not the price. I would say around $189-$200 range is fine, but I want a Transformer that can take a beating (in hours of play). I guess I am looking for perspective more than anything else and to further justify cost. I know a lot went into the engineering and design aspects, and I do like how the colors were molded in their colors, not painted on, but I dunno.

I still love this figure and to me having both Primal and Megatron completes me for the Beast Wars chapter. Unless they make all the predacons.....and fix Dinobot.....

 

@Myjamjar

If mine fails i`m going to build a replacement part with my 3D printer. First one will likely take allot of trial and error to get right.
Later when i get a 3D scanner i`ll just make a duplicate of the real piece, probably out of ABS-R.

 

kinda funny to me actually. if i`m right then this can more or less be summarized as exactly the same kind of issue that was effecting Dinobots left shoulder.
Takara does not seem to be consistently or adequately lubricating the ratchets on some releases.

 

There are so many robotic crotch / ass pictures in this thread that I feel like I am in a porn site lol!  

That's exactly my thoughts on the matter.

 

Third time transforming back to dino mode and here are some additional things I noticed:

- There is a ratcheted ab crunch.
- The left elbow joint has an additional side-to-side to make up for the lack of a swivel.
- The paint on the underside of the toes does scratch somewhat easily when sliding on a desk.

Question, what is the proper way to stand the dino mode up? Is it supposed to balance on the back talon/claw as well? Looking at the cartoon, he seems to walk only on his front toes. As those are not ratcheted (albeit extremely solid), I'm not sure if balancing on his toes is a good long-term solution.

 

With Dinobot I think it's primarily the spring seizing, with the left shoulder hinge spring being the main culprit on most affected copies. That and myself not realizing there were 2 guide slots on each shoulder hinge ratchet, I thought there was only 1.

Haven't transformed my Megatron yet but I'll definitely look into it to compare. Thanks for your feedback so far with the toy.

 

Figures looking really good, will likely pick him up this summer, but may wait and see if there's a reissue forthcoming.

 

I'm sorry if this was asked already but does anyone know if it is possible to take the head a part easily? I'm wondering if there will be a 3rd party voice module with David Kaye Megatron voice made. Would be awesome.

 

The biggest trick to opening the dino head is popping the screw covers on the right side of the head without damaging the paint.

 

Does anyone have a vid review they’d recommend if you really need guidance to correctly transform he backpack? My back pieces don’t line up properly but I dnt wna hamfist and make the nascent stress marks even worse ...

 

The Shoulder on dinobot was immediately fixed when i lubricated it so i guess mine must have not been as bad as others.
If you want to compare i think the only way you will be able to is to dismantle the pelvic assembly, Mine was crazy tight and seemly without
any kind of lubricant. Both i think, are significant risk factors for breakage. proceed with caution if you decide to try it, some may not feel it worth the risk.

 

I just did exactly this today and I definitely like how much smoother the leg ratchets are. Thanks for this post!

 

Those jellyfish are quite big!

Try Wotafa's review

 

Emgo's review at last!