Massive Vintage Apple Haul in Idaho

[ScutBoy]

Nothing super special, just my 1997 BMW 328i. Dove grey interior, manual transmission, M3 limited-slip differential. I drive it rarely enough that I keep a cover on it, as the dark blue shows dust super well.

View attachment 11771

Once the pile of snow from the snowplow in front of my third stall melts a bit more, it will be time to get out the '82 RX-7

 

[Volvo242GT]

Once the pile of snow from the snowplow in front of my third stall melts a bit more, it will be time to get out the '82 RX-7

That, plus the salt from the Minnpoop roads being washed away... ;-)

 

[retr01]

And I see a big Apple box on a high shelf behind @PotatoFi's beloved 1997 BMW 328i.

 

[PotatoFi]

And I see a big Apple box on a high shelf behind @PotatoFi's beloved 1997 BMW 328i.

Yes! This was a Macintosh SE SuperDrive that I restored for a friend some time ago.

 

[PotatoFi]

When I said the project was done... I LIED!

There are actually a couple more machines to deal with. One of which is a slot-loading iMac G3. When I pulled it out of the pile and plugged it in, it would not power on. Other than the faint crackle of the CRT, there were no signs of life. I tried adding a PRAM battery, testing a few points on the logic board for power, and even just leaving it plugged in for several weeks, but nothing seemed to bring it back to life.

Here it is, sitting on the workbench back in August, 2022. Yikes.

After months of mostly just sitting there, I gave up and decided to put it back together. I figured I'd give it away on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace, which was sad because I've always wanted an iMac G3 in Blueberry to match my Blue and White G3.

But as I was putting it back together, I had a shocking realization: THERE WAS NO RAM IN THE MACHINE.

I grabbed a random stick of PC-100 from a nearby box (one of the few items left from the pile, popped it into the machine, and...

I've never been so simultaneously happy and annoyed. ALL IT NEEDED WAS A STICK OF RAM.

The disk didn't spin up and boot, so I grabbed a random 12 GB hard drive from the box-o-IDE-drives that was headed to recycling the next day. I popped it in, and it booted right up to Mac OS 9.2, which really only added insult to injury.

I didn't get a before photo, but it was pretty scratched up. Since I kinda want this one for a shelf ornament, I decided to work on that. I started by wet-sanding it with 1500-grit, then 2000-grit, and finally 2500-grit sandpaper. I think going to 3000 as a last step would have been a good idea, but I don't have any on hand.

I wet-sanded the back, and also the top/front bezel. I only sanded part way down the sides of the screen - the bottom was in great shape so I left it alone.

Next, I masked some stuff off and got to work with Meguiar's Ultimate Compound to polish it. Doing this by hand is possible, but a lot of work, so I spent $12 on a little set of polishing pads that will work on my cordless drill, and go to work.

Once I'd polished the glossy surfaces, I hit a few of the scratches and paint transfers on the matte surfaces with a damp rag dipped into baking soda. I scrubbed the defects away very gently, as going too hard would likely polish away the texture.

Scratch be gone!

Results in the next post.

 

[PotatoFi]

 

[KnobsNSwitches]

SHINY!

Nice work!

 

[retr01]

Amazing job, @PotatoFi! It needs a matching mouse...

 

[Volvo242GT]

Much better. Guess you can install some games on it and put it into service as well.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

Ahh boy, the dreaded forgot -to-check-the-ram pass over - done that a couple times myself in my rush to fix a machine. That polishing really looks fantastic. I have the exact polish so will grab some of those rotary pads this weekend. Totally going to shine up my imacs

 

[Patrick]

looks like the plastic under the clear plastic is ok ?

all mine are shattered under there.

edit: i'm being hyperbolic. i have at least one iMac with shattered plastic under the clear shell....

 

[PotatoFi]

looks like the plastic under the clear plastic is ok ?

It's okay! I keep hoping that someone will make replacements. They don't even need to have a perfect surface finish, they just need to be structurally sound. My other iMac G3 is a mess, I'm afraid that it will just crumble if I take it apart.

 

[3lectr1c]

That’s the main thing I’m worried about. I’ve got a Blueberry SL in REALLY good shape but it’s real high-hour and needs its analog board recapped. Really worried about that bezel. Tube is also not the sharpest anymore, original hard drive had 28 thousand hours on it so it’s probably just worn out.

 

[Patrick]

I purchased a iMac 333MHz new. it was a rev D. (so tray loading)

i loved that thing. i used it all the time. I opened it up lots of times just because I thought it was cool. I dreamt about getting the G4 upgrade that also included a firewire port.

I purchased a Blue and white tower off of craigslist. and my friend asked what i was gonna do with the iMac. ... we made a deal where he would trade me a CRT monitor + money for the iMac.

i never got the money part of that trade. ...
but the worst part is, i regret doing the deal at all. I miss that little guy.

(this was before i became a "collector" )

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

I've got three trayloaders. My cat killed my wifes slot loader unfortunately that was in storage on a top shelf in a bedroom closet. He got up there knocked it off being nosey AF as he was, it landed 7 or so feet on the ground and broke/cracked just about every component on it - No chime, no screen no nothing - not even worth my time. Of course my cat was dumb & cute so he survived.

 

[3lectr1c]

That sounds... awful.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

Well I was bummed out that Kenny killed it. I remember my third or fourth date with my wife and I spied that iMac on her desk and thought “a Macintosh gal” eh. Of course I had to marry her after that lol. Anyhoo, losing the iMac as THE mac in that memory really sucked. I could replace it but it’s not the same. I actually kept the guts for a while after that with the delusion that I’d fix it but ultimately sent its lifeless carcass to the recycler. All I have left at this point is the ram, hard drive and vga cover. Oh well dems da breaks lol.

It’s funny to me that while I prefer the slot loaders in every way, I’m stuck with three tray loaders. I musta stepped on someone’s cats tail and now Karma is paying me back

 

[PotatoFi]

I LIED AGAIN. There's was one more machine: the Quadra 840AV, which was to go to a friend.

I wish I could say that I saved the best for last... but the reality is that I had very high hopes for this machine, but knew that they are very failure-prone and hard to fix (especially after seeing @Mac84's woes with his).

Here's the board out:

As expected, leaky caps. Leaky caps and corrosion, everywhere.

First, I removed the caps. At some point during that process, while poking around on the board, I managed to knock off a resistor. I can't believe I didn't lose it!

I am moving to another country in a few weeks, so I had a deadline looming and couldn't take the time to order a new part. Fortunately, I was able to scrape the corrosion off the back with a hobby knife.

Then, I was able to solder it back down. Whew!

After removing all of the electrolytic caps, thoroughly cleaning the board, and applying new thermal paste to the CPU and heatsink, I took photos of each capacitor location. In most cases, continuity in traces under the caps looked okay, but I wanted to have reference material for what was going on underneath each cap if there were problems.

In this single photo alone, you can see a couple of traces that don't look good.

 

[PotatoFi]

I spent a couple of hours pouring over the Bomarc schematic for the Quadra 840AV, and determined which capacitors would see 12 volts. For those, I replaced them with 24 volt capacitors. For everything else, they received capacitors rated for 16 volts. Then, I got to work soldering.

I didn't notice that C48 was missing from this one until much, much later.

With all of the caps installed, I tested the machine aaaaand... nothing. The power supply comes on, the power LED lights, but that's it. There's no chime or any other activity.

I asked around a bit, and Mac84 Steve recommended checking out a specific area near the P.S.C., where I found several broken traces. I was having tons of trouble getting wires to stick to the vias and legs of the PSC., so I tried reflowing the PSC legs.

Then, I bridged a leg, and struggled to clear it with flux and solder wick. Eventually, I got frustrated and broke out the solder sucker. That was a STUPID, STUPID idea...

I think I'd been looking at the board through the microscope for so long that I had forgotten the scale that I was working with. The kick from the solder sucker caused it to collide with the pins, which bent them all up.

At this point, I felt really, really dumb - that I'd probably destroyed a nearly priceless machine, and one that I was very excited to deliver to a close friend. I have successfully recapped probably two dozen machines at this point (including a Macintosh Classic for LGR), swapped surface-mount chips on SE/30s, and bodged lots of wires to repair broken traces, but this one... this one broke me.

After sleeping on it, I decided to try straightening them out. With my tweezers, microscope, and hobby knife, I was able to improve things a bit, but just a bit.

Despite using tons of flux, and working very carefully, I couldn't get all of the legs to stick to pads, nor could I clear any solder bridges. I decided that I'd done enough damage, and contacted someone with better equipment and skills. The logic board went to them, and the Quadra 840AV chassis went to my friend.

There are officially zero machines left from the pile, except the ones I am keeping:

- Macintosh LCIII
- Macintosh Performa 475
- 12" PowerBook G4
- Polycarbonate MacBook
- Power Macintosh G3
- iMac G3

If the Quadra 840AV is repaired, I'll be sure to post about it here! For now, our journey ends.

 

[retr01]

Are you keeping the Apple IIe Card in your LC III or P475, @PotatoFi?