I have had a nagging desire to get one of these machines for at least a year, and I finally decided to make it happen. The auction got out of hand in the final minutes, but I stayed with it. After a few weeks, I have no regrets.
I picked up a 320MHz G3 upgrade card and an SSD+adapter for it while waiting for it to arrive, and one of the first things I did after delivery was install them.
Preparation:
Internal assembly with original 180MHz CPU and 4GB hard disk
mSATA-IDE adapter with SSD loaded
Internal assembly with BOOSTER 320 and SSD installed
After that I began looking for replacements for the infamous degraded rubber feet and bumpers. The seller had mostly removed the feet, and the display bezel bumpers had only just begun to get sticky, so I had an easy time getting all of the old stuff cleaned off. For the feet I went with some 10mm diameter rubber cabinet bumpers. I had to work to lodge these into the recessions on the case bottom and 9mm or 8mm would have been easier, but I had diffuculty finding smaller ones and I'm not unhappy with the result.
For the display bezel bumpers, I got some vinyl wire caps and cut the ends off. A perfect fit!
I should have a PRAM battery arriving soon, although I still need to arrange to have the main battery rebuilt. I will get moving on that once I manage to acquire some extras. Finally, here is the machine now (the two screw hole appliques behind the keyboard are staying off until I get the new PRAM battery installed):
I picked up a 320MHz G3 upgrade card and an SSD+adapter for it while waiting for it to arrive, and one of the first things I did after delivery was install them.
Preparation:
Internal assembly with original 180MHz CPU and 4GB hard disk
mSATA-IDE adapter with SSD loaded
Internal assembly with BOOSTER 320 and SSD installed
After that I began looking for replacements for the infamous degraded rubber feet and bumpers. The seller had mostly removed the feet, and the display bezel bumpers had only just begun to get sticky, so I had an easy time getting all of the old stuff cleaned off. For the feet I went with some 10mm diameter rubber cabinet bumpers. I had to work to lodge these into the recessions on the case bottom and 9mm or 8mm would have been easier, but I had diffuculty finding smaller ones and I'm not unhappy with the result.
For the display bezel bumpers, I got some vinyl wire caps and cut the ends off. A perfect fit!
I should have a PRAM battery arriving soon, although I still need to arrange to have the main battery rebuilt. I will get moving on that once I manage to acquire some extras. Finally, here is the machine now (the two screw hole appliques behind the keyboard are staying off until I get the new PRAM battery installed):