Moving on to the front fan mounts, I need to line-up fans, drill holes, and verify standoffs will help reduce any fan vibration from affecting the rest of the case.
Top fan line-up before drilling (using test fan):
Lower front fan needs some attention because it is missing metal to make the lower left corner mount. Mounting a fan with 3 corners will work just fine, but I'm a perfectionist sometimes.  Here's my solution from start to finish...
Line up (Scythe fans now):
Scrap aluminum to use for 4th corner mount and the tools to cut it:
The nibbler cuts thin metal cleaner than the metal shears. The metal sheers will bend sheet metal slightly and leave a rough edge that requires more edge work:
Nibbler part way through:
Triangular piece cut:
Automotive double-sided tape added to the back to keep the aluminum away from the case's steel as much as possible. The two metals obviously expand and contract at different temperature curves, so this will help reduce vibrations and metal fatigue at the same time.
The metal piece is lined-up and stuck to the case.
Time to pull out a pop rivet tool and 3/16" pop rivets...
Pop rivets leave a tight and clean finish compared to bolts or screws, but are only useful for permanent mounts.
Inside of pop-riveted panel. I added a washer here to offset the thickness of the steel case. This will not be visible (fan will hide it), and it will be covered by the undercoating I'll be using on the case's interior.
Fan added again to verify line-up hasn't changed. The entire mount will be painted with the undercoating along with the case's interior, then hidden by the front plastic panel.
Now on to the rear fan which will also need two custom mounts. Instead of having the mounts coming up over the fan on the inside of the case, I'm going to have them go in between the two sides of the fan. This will require a small cut into the fan housing to make room. This won't affect the fan's stability or performance at all.
Here's the fan resting in the rough cut-out before I trimmed it ever more. It was a little too snug here.
I'm going to replicated the same thing I did for the front fan with aluminum, triangular sheets.
Two triangles cut-out from the aluminum...
Agian, automotive double-sided tape applied...
Cuts made into the Scythe fan housing to allow mounting from the middle of the two fan's sides.
Line-up before automotive tape applied...
Pop-riveted into the case's ATX panel cover (I made sure to allow for spaces around fan, such as side panel mounts, etc.)...
View from outside of case...
Previously, I made a new cut-out for the PSU to lower it away from the mobo and give some extra breathing room. The original PSU location is most likely where I'll route all of my CCFL power connections. I plan to make a custom box for all of the CCFL power inverters, and splice my own connectors to give it a modular feel.
Any ways, on to the PSU mount. I made my measurements and drew down lines from existing PSU mounting holes. The holes don't need to be as wide as traditional PSU mounts if I know exactly where they should be for modern PSUs...
My first attempt lines up perfectly with an empty PSU case I keep around for doing mods.
It also lines up with my PC Power & Cooling PSU. Whoot! No hole enlargement needed. Then I encountered a different issue: the fan cut-outs don't quite match modern PSU fan placement. I originally measured the PSU cut-out for the PSU fan area from the existing PSU mount. The 1996 mount doesn't like our 21st century mounts. It would work fine, but the protruding metal might add some air turbulence to the PSU's exhaust fan. That's the last thing I want in a 'quiet PC'. So, I marked where I should cut...
Now the fan has plenty of unobstructed breathing room. In case you didn't see the original PSU cut-out I made, the top curve is longer because this case originally had a fan cut-out where my new PSU cut-out is. The top of the fan cut-out would look funny if I didn't include it in my PSU cut-out curve. Also, the pic doesn't show it well, but the left side of the PSU cut-out is at the edge of the fan. No obstruction, just odd angle and tough to see PSU fan since it's all black.
While I have the PSU mounted, I might as well check its clearance for the 5.25" bays while I'm at it. Many PC Power & Cooling top-end model PSUs will have a longer than normal chassis, so clearance may become an issue in some cases...
and the clearance looks fine, even if quite close.
On to more mod work...
Since I flipped the case, I had to flip the 3.5" bay tray too. Here's the original bay, removed from the case by drilling out the pop rivets. I marked the line to cut in red:
15 second Dremel cut and 1 minute cleaning up the edge:
Line-up of bay using tongue depressors:
Measure twice, drill once...
I matched the hole and area size to the right bolt and nut size. I always have a decent supply of metal bolts and nuts on hands, so I was able to find a nut that rested against the tray's edge to allow tightening of the bolt with only a screwdriver. I used bolts instead of pop rivets because I may wish to remove the 3.5" bay in future upgrades.
Drilled holes and mounted for one pair of bolts:
Next pair and it's done:
View from the case's front:
I slid in all of the drives I'll have, temporarily added the front panel, and lined everything up to see what else I had to drill. To my surprise, I didn't need to drill a single hole for the 5.25" bays even though they're essentially flipped. The DVD burner I got had holes to match, and the HDD coolers are actually mounted upside down, but the drives will be right side up inside the coolers. I don't know why Scythe designed these for drives to be mounted upside down, but it certainly works for my upside down case!
I am lucky to have 3.5cm of clearance between my PSU and the HDD silencers, so I will mount them at the bottom as per my original plans. 3.5cm doesn't sound like much on paper, but with absolutely nothing in that 3.5cm gap, it's plenty of room for air flow into the front vents of the PSU.
I have just enough bay covers, and was lucky to see I won't have to mod anything to get stuff to fit. I was worried that putting my HDD silencers out farther than normal would obstruct the stock covers, but the covers fit over with a few millimeters to spare. Sweet. The more yellowish-looking cover (it will all be painted anyways) is actually mounted on a piece of steel that mounts inside the 5.25" bay with screws. They over-designed these old cases with more tolerances and structural reinforcement than needed. Push in too hard on a 5.25" bay cover of a new PC case and it will pop out of its clips. Push all you want on this bay cover and it won't budge. It would take a hammer many, many wacks to break it loose, lol.
This case was built like a tank. I did make it weaker by removing some metal, a few extra pop rivets, and its middle support bar, but even so, it's still stronger than most other stock cases.
This case wasn't originally mine. I picked it up second hand for free, using a Freecycle group in my area. It was from an ad I put up for old PCs. Often I'll get a lot of crap (which I still haul away for them), but sometimes I'll run across a mod gem like this case. The rest of the old PCs I repair by replacing dead components with working ones from the lot I get. I then give away again for free to others in need of working PCs regardless of age.
I did some cut work on the front panel. Here's the results...
Original panel with middle plate removed:
Here's the middle plate which I hope to never see again.
Rough cut with my Dremel and one of the newer EZ-lock cutting blades specifically sold for cutting plastic. I rarely cut plastic, so this was a technique learning experience for me. I'm use to cutting steel and aluminum by moving the blade down perpendicular to the metal surface, making straight cuts by making several blade-length notches. Sometimes I'll cut a groove along my lines to help guide me, but most cuts are done using the full length of the blade. I've learned that doing a 'band saw' style cut (moving the rotary tool through the metal) will eat up blades too quickly.
Plastic is a different story. My plastic panel cut better when using a "band saw" style cutting method and didn't eat up the blade. Using my metal cutting techniques on plastic will make the cuts, but creates a lot of plastic slag because it ends up melting too much of the plastic before it cuts it.
Here's my rough Dremel cut after removing any plastic slag:
I cleaned up the panel just a little, to get a feel for it, and checked it against the case:
I made a curved notch in the left side of the case to give more room for turning the 1st fan controller nob and to look better. I then did some final sanding and clean-up of the panel. It's ready for adding mesh and such, which I'll probably do tomorrow.
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