Decided to mirror my posts, since there was demand for a separate thread. @Jarrod , your mods and tutorials would be helpful if mirrored here too. If anyone needs further help, feel free to DM me, and we can arrange something together. Also if possible, please answer the poll above. I’m curious as to what the statistic is. FOR PEOPLE WHO BROKE THEIR MP-44 HERE'S HOW I FIXED MINE. THIS IS ALSO MORE DURABLE THAN THE UNBROKEN ORIGINAL. Thanks to @kentan99 for the original idea. @God Orion I never expected to be the one making a fix, but here ya go. Step 1: Disassembly This is the back of the thigh piece you wanna take off. Should Look like this when you're done. Step 2: Ratchet Here is the ratchet piece that all the breakage surrounds You wanna apply the glue on the bottom of the ratchet on the "outside" of the ring connecting it into the inner calf. Also, I recommend using gorilla gel super glue to do this. Real durable stuff. Put the piece into it's slot and clean up the excess glue with a toothpick. Leave it to dry for around 5 mins. Step 3: Reassembly Screw in the lower ratchet pieces like so and position the ratchets as though the leg is straight. This will allow you to reattach the other white piece easier. Edit: You need one hand to hold it in. Preferably not your dominant hand, then screw in the white piece. After that, cover the ratchet with your thumb as you bend it. Just screw in the lower leg on, and it will hold into place. Put the knee back into the thigh and put the ratchet in like so. Screw the back of the thigh in. Step 4: You're done. It probably won't break anymore. Life's Good. Now you can play with your MP-44! I will do a paint fixing tutorial in the future. I have a lot of scuffs.
Thanks for the knee fix tutorial - i will refer to it if mine ever breaks. May I know what yellow you would recommend on the waist panels?
I’d also recommend the fix as a preventative for the breakage. I have yet to paint it, but it seems to match very closely to Mr. Hobby’s character yellow. I’ll see if I can snap a pic for that. Mr. Hobby is a Lacquer paint, so you have to be careful, since lacquers mess around with takara’s paint jobs. Basically, get it right the first time or airbrush. Edit: here’s a sample of character yellow:
cool. both my lower knee joints stopped ratcheting pretty quickly. i'll open him up this weekend and give this a go.
Nah. Lacquer paints are pretty durable. You also have the tone you would like already below the paint. Priming is usually a neural coating that makes sure the colour of the paint is balanced/even. Also helps paint to stick, but in the case of lacquer, that isn’t much of a problem. I don’t recommend handbrushing lacquers though unless it is a really small scuff. Handbrushing is quite difficult to pull off. Acrylics are better for handbrushing, but are less durable. Mr. Hobby has their acrysion line, where they have the same colour selection as their lacquer line, but acrylic. I believe their number codes are the same too. I hope this helps!
Thanks to @BrutiKing and @Jarrod for your efforts getting to the bottom of this! I got a question for you guys though - just curiosity really. Mine is still on the way or I'd just disassemble and figure it out for myself, but from just looking at the pics posted so far I'm wondering what is the reason that tab needs to be engaged in order for the lower joint to move without damage? It sorta looks just like the upper joint stops out, then further force would move the lower joint, but in theory they could both move independantly without damage. But from the damage reports and your descriptions, it must be more like the lower joint is prevented from moving (at least without damage) until that tab engages, then when that tab engages the lower joint 'unlocked' and can then move without damage - almost like a interlock mechanism. How is that realised? Cheers
They can't move independently without damage. The upper joint has to bend fully to allow the lower joint to move in as there's a circular track inside. The damage has nothing to do with this, and it's rather the housing of the lower joint that warps in place. This image below shows how the knee would work normally.
There’s a specific slot that the second ratchet is supposed to go through, and if you don’t get it through, the ratchet rotates in its housing and grinds away plastic.
I happened to see your post in the other thread: TakaraTomy Masterpiece MP-44 Convoy V.3 - Proactive Leg Fix Thanks for your submission! You guys please keep adding your assistance and such to this thread, and I'll resource whatever's helpful.
Interesting. 5 minute epoxy will generally create a much stronger bond than super glue...if you give it the proper time to fully cure and harden (5 minutes is a misnomer and typically needs much longer to cure for small parts (10...20...30+ minutes) and harden (should wait at least a day before putting under stress). Also messier and stinks until it cures. I'll have this to look forward to when we eventually get MP44 down the line.
Thanks for adding that. I've re added below with pics attached: Great fix! I was going to suggest similar, but you've already done the work. Also, adding tiny pins like the Japanese Twitter user from earlier would definitely work too. Having this in hand, and seeing how everything works, its clear, that stupid little blue ratchet piece is absolutely the offender. Regardless of how tight that ratchet is, or how snug the white channel is, because it's a separate part from the lower leg is the problem. I can't see any reason why it's separate as well, and seems to be a pretty poor decision and bonehead move on TT's part. The ratchet compresses inside the knee, so that small part should have no reason to move, and therefor no reason to be separate. So, for those of who you have intact knees, here's some preventative maintenance I have done. Now, this could be completely avoided if you're just careful, and understand one specific point: The most important thing to understand is, the tab, indicated by the green arrow, MUST slide into the channel, indicated by the red arrow, to allow the lower knee to bend! It should look like this. BUT, the tabs on both my legs were a very snug fit...like they barely slid it, and I could feel resistance. Likewise, the tab can be slightly misaligned. This is due to the tiny bit of play in the ratchets, but also the play in little tabs on the small blue piece. (Another reason this part should not be separate, because then there'd be no play there! If you tried to bend the lower joint, with the upper joint fully bent, but the tab not properly aligned, as shown above, you will damage the ratchet housing! So, I took apart the lower leg, and trimmed down that sliding tab some. I first trimmed the "front" edge (red arrow), the edge that goes inside the channel first, into a point. This way, if it was a little higher or lower, it could guide into the channel. I also sanded down the upper and inside edges some, the edges indicated the green arrows. Lastly, I noticed during disassembly, that the ratchet part, visible below, was kinda tight on the shaft indicated by green arrow, and didn't slide up and down as easily as it probably should. So, just to be safe, I pulled out that small ratchet piece and spring, put some hobby lube on the shaft, put the spring and ratchet back on, and put a little lube on the ratchet too. Don't know how necessary this was, but better safe than sorry. Finally, put everything back together, and I can now freely swing both joints back and forth with a smooth, buttery motion. I no longer get the stop with a little resistance before the second joint kicks in, and the tab slides right in and out of the channel flawlessly! Yep, as Brutiking sums it up well. Basically, that part is purely a simple friction stopper. It's attached to the lower leg "locked" in place by two little tabs. This part should only turn along the horizontal axis WITH the lower leg. This part also has the lower leg ratchet on the inside. If you turn the lower leg, and this part does not move, you're in trouble. That means, the lower leg is not clicking on the ratchet, but instead the part is turning in it's housing, because it's damaged the housing walls, and those two little tabs, supposed to hold it in place, no longer are. That channel in the upper knee is what allows the blue part to rotate, since it gives the stopper somewhere to go. @BrutiKing maybe you could post the pics of your damaged joint from the other thread to better illustrate. I'm not disassembling mine again
@Jarrod I’m adding this here. Maybe thread could be renamed to general fixes for MP44? Could you possibly repost it here please! You da man! Per @Jarrod: “ I also don't subscribe to the "bent antennas are on purpose" theory. Mostly. I'm thinking it's the way that particular type of nylon cures. But I could be wrong, I dunno. Regardless, I fixed mine. Took a lot more heat and manipulating than other softer plastics. I ended up needed to hold them against a flat surface, while hitting them, real close, with a hair dryer on the hottest setting. Took about 3 30 seconds heatings each antenna. I pressed down on each, against the flat surface as they cooled, but also needed to careful bend the tips on each once. I think I accidentally angled the S1 head's antennas a little too far, and went back and corrected them after the picture was taken. The S1 head BARELY passes through the opening for transformation, however the S2 head fits with no issues. “
Didn't see this thread, so I'm reposting my question from the news-thread in here: Does it really require glue to fix this? or can the issue be rectified by using/saturating it with just ye always-TF-reliable Future/Pledge polish? I might have to do the horns-straightening bit, too. TT should have just included straight horns as extras if they're worried about transit or packaging breakage for it.
