i may try that,

Mine came in the old black packaging and had the same problem.

 

I fixed it by taking that side apart with a screwdriver, and carefully rotating the misaligned part about 15-20 degrees with needlenose pliers. The misaligned part is a gear-shaped piece of black plastic that a little spring-loaded white part fits to form the ratcheting mechanism (be careful not to lose the white part or the tiny springs when taking the unit apart). Proper alignment requires having the notchs of the gear aligned with the longitudinal axis of the thruster unit, like this:

ok i have a few questions about your repair work. what parts did you actually take apart and adjust? ok the large arms are connected to the body of the unit by that small green connector arm. now it seems to be a little off on both ends so i'd have to take apart the large arm and the body of the unit to totally fix it. does that make any sense?

 

now i'm afraid if i take both pieces apart then i'm going to mess something up that i can't get back together again correctly, you mentioned tiny springs so i'm wondering if these springs should happen to pop out before i can see how they're put in, will it be hard to figure out exactly how they were?

Mine was only out of line at one location, what would be the hip-joint in ED-209 mode.

 

The springs aren't under a lot of compression or anything, they're just tiny and easy to drop into the carpet if you're unaware of their existence. They just sit in between the white piece and the outer casing - so you don't have to worry about them flying out or being difficult to position to put it back together. These springs are what keep the white piece pushed into the gear above, so when you rotate the arm (and gear) they compress to allow the ratchet mechanism to work.

 

One other thing, be careful rotaing the gear, don't use excessive force - I read an independent review of someone trying this and breaking the gear, which surprised me somewhat - I didn't have any trouble (it's possible they tried to pull the gear off instead of just rotating it).

 

What I think causes this problem: I was looking at one in the box at Target yesterday, they package Bulkhead with that side partially transformed - the little gear probably just gets rotated inside the casing (since it's cinched down tight with twist-ties) during transit from the factory.