Part 12 - Final Assembly
Now that all the painted parts were dry, it was time to put it all together. Assembling everything in the proper order was critical to success and to prevent marring of the case finish.

(1) - Cover panel and case fan
This had no dependencies on any other assembly. I simply installed the 80mm fan in the cover panel and set it aside.

(2) - Drive activity light pipes
All the light pipes (except the CD-RW light pipe) were installed without their LEDs. The LEDs would be inserted into each light pipe as its corresponding assembly was installed. The hard disk drive and SuperDisk drive activity light pipes were snap-fit into place. The CD-RW drive and hard disk drive activity lights were welded in place with plastic solvent. The position of, and mechanical reinforcement provided by, the CD-RW drive light pipe were especially critical.

(3) - NMI and reset switches
The entire assembly was simply screwed into place with a single screw. The lead wires were taped out of the way until the hard drive/CD-RW drive/SuperDisk drive assembly was installed.

(4) - Motherboard installation
When I had test fit the motherboard previously, I had installed the processor and RAM modules. These had been left in place to minimize handling. I installed the FireWire module onto the motherboard, then installed the motherboard into the case. Before tightening the motherboard in place, I attached the rear panel and temporarily installed two PCI expansion cards. This allowed me to attain perfect alignment between the motherboard and the rear panel. The motherboard hold down screws were then tightened in place and the PCI cards were removed.

(5) - Power switch and I/O accessories installation
The Griffin gPort and the Belkin PS/2-to-USB auxilliary logic boards were then installed. The bezel on the Belkin board was sandwiched between the circuit board and the rear panel. Its location would block the outmost PCI slot (later I removed it to allow for better airflow into the case). The ribbon cable that came with the Griffin board was too short, so I removed the connectors and made a new cable.

The power switch was threaded into the nut previously glued to the rear panel and the cable taped to the inside with electrician's tape. The end was temporarily taped to the inside front, out of the way.

(6) - Motherboard auxilliary hook-ups
The internal speaker was installed next. Its cable, the front panel ribbon cable, FireWire auxilliary power cable (24V), and CD audio cable were then attached to the motherboard.

(7) - Power supply installation
The power supply was inserted into the rear panel and fixed in place using a spare metal mounting frame from a Cooler Master case. The ATX power cable was routed along the bottom front of the case and connected to the motherboard power header. The remaining power cables were temporarily taped to the top of the power supply out of the way. (Unfortunately, my measurements were a bit off so I ended up putting spacers between the metal mounting plate and the rear panel to prevent the power supply from hitting the RAM.)

(8) - Power-on and hard drive activity LED installation
Before the drive assembly was installed, the power-on and hard drive activity lights had to be put in place. The power-on LED was snapped into its light pipe and connected to a spare power connector. The hard disk drive activity LED was snapped into its light pipe, its connector taped to the inside side wall for later connection with the ATA/133 controller.

(10) - CD-RW drive installation
The CD-RW drive was secure to the plastic drive support bracket using two long screws with washers. I installed the metal spacers I had made previously between the drive and the top of the support bracket. Before I tightened down the screws, I temporarily installed the entire assembly into the case, tightening down the side screws to align the drive perfectly. Then, I carefully removed the side screws while clamping the CD-RW drive/bracket assembly with my hand to maintain the drive alignment. After removing the assembly from the case, I tightened down the two screws that held the CD-RW drive to the plastic support bracket. I reinstalled it into the case to verify the alignment was perfect.

(11) - SuperDisk drive installation
The SuperDisk drive was installed into the plastic support bracket, welding two sheets of plastic (5/32") between the bracket and the top of the drive for correct alignment.

Alignment was verified by installing the entire assembly into the case and tightening down the CD-RW drive side screws.

(12) - Hard disk drive installation
Once again, I removed the drive assembly from the case. The hard drive support tray was attached to the side of the CD-RW drive using two screws and the lower set of mounting holes in the CD-RW drive. Then, the hard drive was installed in the hard drive tray.

(13) - Switch and LED hook-ups
I placed the eject button switches into the front panel and secured them with a sausage of epoxy putty wrapped around the threads. Holding the drive assembly in one hand because the reach of the switch and LED cables was short, I then installed the SuperDisk and CD-RW drive activity LEDs, and connected the NMI/reset/power-on switches to the front panel logic board.

(14) - Drive assembly installation
Still holding the drive assembly, I carefully connected the SuperDisk/CD-RW drive IDE ribbon cable and power connectors before lowering the entire assembly into the case and sliding it in place. The CD-RW drive and hard drive tray side screws and spacers were installed and tightened down.

(15) - Expansion card installation
I installed the ATA/133 controller first, next to the video slot, attaching the hard drive activity LED connector to the appropriate header (I later discovered this did not work and just de-soldered the existing LED and soldered the drive activity LED cable directly to the card -- void your warranty!). Then, I installed the video card and SCSI controller cards. Rear panel retaining screws were set for all.

(16) - Fan hook-up and case closure
Finally, the fan power cable was attached to the fan power connector and the cover closed down and screwed into place.

The Number of this Beast
I dubbed my retro-look Macintosh "Macintosh GIIIci." Macintosh + G3 + ci. The three is in Roman numerals like the original. Get it? Okay, so it's not a particularly clever name.

	Model name close-up.

Please feel free to send me your comments or suggestions or just to say hello.

I hope you enjoyed this article. Thanks for reading. Stay well, stay happy.

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