Verno's TM Megatron fixed

[kup]

Rather than a HOWTO guide, this is more of a showing that all toys can be fixed with some information about GPS .

I recently bought Verno's TM Megatron:





As you can see, the toy had a broken arm (at the shoulder hinge) which fortunately came with no missing pieces which made it a simple job to repair as I didn't have to 'make' any replacement parts. I fixed it by just gluing the broken bits together and making a tiny (and reversible) mod that removes the pressure which the pin applies to the plastic hinge when it moves. The hinge plastic has now become too inflexible to handle the stress which is the fundamental reason of why the plastic breaks in toys with GPS. The lack of flexibility of the hinge is probably what caused the toy to originally break.

Here is the result after repairs:





By removing the pressure applied to the hinge, Megatron can now successfully transform and even hold his weapon with minimal risk of breaking. The hinge joint is naturally a bit more loose but still good enough for display and play (carefully since the toy still has GPS ).





Despite what TFWiki says on the subject, the Hasbro release of Beast Wars TM Megatron does suffer from Gold Plastic Syndrome. Yes, the plastic is dark brown instead of gold but all the symptoms of GPS are present making it every bit as fragile as any other 'gold' toy. This is certainly not just a case of "weak plastic" or "bad design" but the plastic loosing all it's flexibility which causes it to crack and break when any form of pressure is applied, similar to porcelain. This lack of flexibility and low to no tolerance to pressure is what makes the plastic crack and break. If you notice, GPS broken toys are usually damaged at pressured joints and areas where a pin is pressing upon the plastic.

It's not that the plastic 'disintegrates' by itself as it's commonly believed, but rather that the plastic totally looses flexibility and any amount of pressure no matter how light, causes it to crack and since the GPS causes the plastic to become very hardened, it breaks in 'shards' with a dusty residue just as porcelain does. If you remove the 'pressure' factor, your GPS toy will last as long as any other toy.

I have carried out similar 'fixes' to Verno's BW Megatron on all my other GPS toys so I can transform and play with all of them including G1 Bristleback and Skyquake as you can see in my photo galleries. Despite Skyquake's commonly known fragility, after a tiny tweak I can transform and 'dock' the other Predator jets into the scope without risk of breaking. Similarly, I can also easily combine Bristleback to form Monstructor with little risk of breakage which I have repeatedly done since I fixed him.

From my own experience with GPS toys (I own most of the G1 toys that have it), there is a lot of mis-information on the actual nature of it and the TFwiki is unfortunately a culprit of many. I advise that you read the related wiki articles on the subject with a discerning mindset and don't take everything they say as factual.