Leader Optimus is a great action figure with the back of a truck strapped to his back. So I set out to make him less kibble-y and give him his hip skirts back. First thing I did was remove his backpack. Was super easy if thats all you want to do to mod your Optimus. Removing Backpack 1. Normal size needle nose pliers. 2. Elbow Grease 3. Luck - Put Optimus in a secure spot with a tight grip on him. I put him in between my knees. - Put the Needle nose pliers in between the 2 pieces of plastic attach to the pin. - Pull pliers apart. (I say you need luck because the plastic might stress, mine didn't but hey.) - Then Pull pin out if desired. Adding hip skirt back 1. Screw driver 2. Super glue 3. The will to break your toy 4. Plastic sprue (of particular shape... I used My First Blaster sprue bits) 5. Electrical dudads... (AMP Ring Terminals) Now on to adding the hip skirts back. By that was scary. But hey he looked good without a hip skirt so if I broke it I have a cool Optimus with no hip skirt... Soooo.... - Take hip skirt piece pull away from pin. (There is no good way to do it) If you do this you will literally be breaking your toy. Do at own risk. -The part will break away from pin. It will fit back in the pin for transformation if you want. - I bought these... (It is some sort of electrical dudad... Newer ones of this size have red. Fits with figure.) See image... - Unscrew smoke stacks put "AMP Ring Terminals" in place. Screw back on smoke stacks - Get a piece of plastic that looks like this. Sanding is required. (I used a sprue from mfb sprue.) - Sanding the sprue will allow for it to fit into freshly broke off hip skirt. - Angle sprue with hip skirt attached hold in place with "AMP RT" to get angle. - Super Glue part inside of "AMP RT" takes some doing and some major patience. I filled the electrical dudad with super glue for maximum hold. - Put back on hip skirts. AOE OP has his hip skirts back! Mine can transform back into truck mode but I don't think I will do it.
