Got Deluxe Longarm and Payload today, pretty jazzed (no pun intended).

Payload, as we all know by now, has the Big Honkin' Plunger o' Doom coming out of his back. The plunger holds a robot-mode chest piece on one end, and the truck-mode grill on the other, and activates his capture-claw thing in robot mode. I removed the plunger, and it leaves our little friend with a hole in his torso big enough to drive thru. With a little creativity, you could fasten the little chest piece and his truck-grill kibble to cover that opening, and he'd look pretty cool. The trick would be to get the grill to fasten in both robot and truck modes- you'll have to resort to Lego-forming, no other option. More than I felt like doing today.

What I ended up doing was taking apart the BHPoD, removing the main spring, and reassembling it. This lets you position the plunger anywhere along its travel, like so:

Click to view attachment Click to view attachment

This distributes the length of this awful thing, somewhat aleviating this flaw. You can leave it so that, out back, it is more or less even with his shoulder kibble/wings, and it sticks out in a somewhat menacing manner up front. The capture action is left intact (there's a second spring that controls that). Not perfect but a quick "fix".

Another thing you could do, a little more adventurous, is to cut off the front and rear tips of the plunger, and glue them together. This will let you fill his torso gap and keep the grill kibble attached in robot mode as intended. You'll still need to find a way to attach the grill in truck mode, tho.

Overall, a fun figure, nice leg articulation and a great truck mode. Funny thing is, it's vastly smaller in scale than the other deluxes, even little 76 BB. Still a cool fig.

Now, Longarm is really really cool, except that his cannon comes screwed onto his right hand. Odd, but so. It pegs into his left hand in truck mode, so I just removed it from his right one and let him hold it in his left. Or, as shown, you can mount it as a shoulder cannon...

Click to view attachment

... by flipping the gun barrel 180deg. and fastening the tow hook underneath in back:

Click to view attachment

Longarm has a very tough stance, but his feet are hard to form. There are no positive stops for the parts that rotate to form his feet, so you kinda have to make it up as you go. Mine had a very loose ball joint connecting his upper body to his hips, it would not stay in place at all. I popped it off and slipped in a couple layers of floded paper towel, and it did the trick. Truck mode is all win, with a working tow hook and nice overall shape.

Cool mods. Definitely an improvement.

Still not really motivated to buy either.

I like Longarm and plan on getting him but Im not impressed with the Drone Decepticons. Payload is terribly out of scale and they couldn't even make a decent head for him.

I've had an idea to fix Payload since the first time I saw him: Take the spring out. Either cut one or two breaks in the extendo arm of doom and fasten joints or lego pieces to make it so that it folds up on his back. Or, alternatively, replace the entire mechanism with jointed lego pieces allowing for the same kind of folding. This way the bumber ends up as back kibble and not a hey-I-got-stabbed-with-my-own-frame look and, no part forming. Since I don't have him yet, it's just an idea.

I've seen pics on remy's site where he removes the head and shoulder part of Payload. Is it really that easy to remove, and what would be the point?

It is easy- there are 4 pegs holding that head/shoulders piece on. Mine tends to loosen up on its own. The point? None that I can see. The underside of where the head mounts to is the back of the truck in alt mode, so a screw or rivet there to hold the head on would look bad, so they came up with this. I guess.

Unforch, the head is held onto that removeable "platform" w/ a rivet, so head swaps will be a little more involved. HTH

the head mount, the grille and the chest piece come off payload. I figured out the spring thing on my own (ask anyone who was in the shout box as I opened these 2 and modded them live about it. I basically had the same ideas you did. So anyway, as to these fall off pieces, my friend in this case was crazy glue. These buggers ain't going nowhere now!.

How important is Payloads "Shaft" to his transformation? Does anything peg to it?

Want these two figures... now

The only thing it does in vehicle mode is hold his front grill/bumper on. In robot mode, it also holds the grill/bumper and his chest-piece thing. It does fill a big gap in his chest, tho. Like I said, with a little creativity, you could get the chest piece and grill/bumper to attach without the plunger in both modes (truck mode only needs the grill attached). Nothign pegs to it in either mode except for the aforementioned parts.

I'll try to get some pics of him disassembled with and without the plunger.

Why in the world would you want to get rid of Payload's awesome gimmick? The figure is fine as it is.

I love these guys, I just picked them up with Final Battle Jazz. Longarm is quickly becoming my favorite movie figure. Awesome posability, awesome detailing (gotta love the little details on the back of his truck bed), giant gun and great head sculpt. Yeah, i was a little disappointed that he couldn't let go of his gun, but it was no big deal as I would always display him with his weapon anyway! Payload has a really cool vehicle mode and robot mode, the only thing that bugs me are the parts that come off really easy (head, grill, etc.) and the giant plunger out his back. It's odd they even gave him the chest piece because if you really activate his claw it shoots right off! He doesn't come close to Wreckage or Barricade or the other movie Deceps, but he's still a lot cooler then Swindle. I like how big they both look. Great toys, eager to find G1 Jazz.

Here is some detailing i did to LongArm:


I really like Payload and added Nail Polish to his removable bits. but i am still wondering what i should do with his wacky plunger - it doesnt bother me too much - but if it folded flush it would be alot nicer looking.

Hey, I like the Longarm details! I love his diamond plate,but I feel a little cheated that the plate on his chest is "fake", i.e. it's already there and it doesn't transform into place. No biggie tho, LA is great!

Check out my bigger Payload mod- def. gets rid of the plunger, but some might consider it pretty drastic:

http://www.TFans.com/talk/index.php?showtopic=74752

I love this two figures, can't wait!

I also removed Longarm's attached gun! After unscrewing the gun, I cut off the screw head, so that the gun can be "held" in either hand. and still be secured in alt mode. I want to remove the screw entirely, perhaps replace it with a black plastic peg,.. just I can not find any that are suitable in my scrap-bin.

Your shoulder gun idea is GREAT!

I like the detailing on Longarm. I have been wondering how to detail him up to look more real. I know one thing is for sure no wrecker on the road is as clean as he is. So I think some greasing up is in order. As far as his gun.. I had an epiphany, They should have made him "Longshot, Autobot Sniper" instead. Perhaps that could be a kitbash for the future. I think the 74' Camaro looks real good being towed behind as well. I passed on Payload to pickup Dropkick and he is pretty cool. You should check him out Hip-hop!!

Hotwheelz, someone around here did a nice detail paint job on Longarm, maybe search the Kitbash forum. Looked great.

I would have passed on Payload for Dropkick if I'd seen him, but no dice. Was hoping to see him tonight at Target, but I got G1 Jazz and Leader Brawl, so it's OK!

Glad you like the shoulder gun. I have a thing against TFs that *have to* hold their guns in their hand, they should all have a "holster" or someplace else to put it for hand-to-hand combat.

Thanks for the mod to Longarm.

oops - wrong post!