Apple II System Conversion: 3.5" Disk Drive Modification

http://www.apple2.org : The Apple ][ Information Resource

Reference Pages: Apple II Hardware [ Disk Drive Modifications ]

Manufacturer: Various
PC 3.5" Drive Bracket Modification
	The PC Drive bracket may or may not interfear with Apple drives' Manual Eject Lever. Most of the time it will and you will need to modify the right side bracket half. As you see in this picture the drives eject lever is right in front of the bracket edge. This is with a disk in the drive. Without a disk in the drive it would not even mate to the bracket. The lever is further back and is blocked.

	This is the drive bracket half without the drive. Pay no attention to the little 'nick' in it, I got a little ahead of myself before taking this picture and had taken the nibbler tool to it. You will need to cut away about 1/4 inch of the backet above the screw. The left side of the bracket will be ok since there are no pertruding parts of the Apple drive on that side. All the moving parts of the drive are within the drive frame itself.
Ok, so a Dremel would be over kill for this mod, but still can be used if thats all you have.
	Shown is the bracket half with a Nibbler tool. It's called a nibbler because you take out small portions at a time. The bracket has one 'bite' taken out of it in this picture. This nibbler tool is available at Radio Shack for around $11 and is well worth it. (Yes, Radio Shack has something usefull, at a lessor price too, these are usually around $15 to $19 eleswhere). You will be able to use this tool for alot of the other work you will be doing in various parts of the conversion. So it's not bad to have it. Using the Dremel tool here would be slower as this whole process takes about 40 seconds and about 6 bites.

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